


Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

by sophene



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Green Lantern - All Media Types, Justice League - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Capes, Alternate Universe - Suburbia, Bruce Wayne is a Helicopter Parent, Enemies to Lovers, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Secret Relationship, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-02-24 23:55:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 80,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22006534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophene/pseuds/sophene
Summary: In which Bruce Wayne is a stay-at-home helicopter dad and Hal Jordan is the irresponsible flyboy who moves into the house next door.
Relationships: Alfred Pennyworth & Bruce Wayne, Barry Allen & Hal Jordan, Bruce Wayne & the batkids, Clark Kent & Bruce Wayne, Diana (Wonder Woman) & Bruce Wayne, Guy Gardner & Hal Jordan, Hal Jordan & John Stewart, Hal Jordan & Kyle Rayner, Hal Jordan/Bruce Wayne, Kyle Rayner/Jason Todd, Stephanie Brown & Cassandra Cain
Comments: 316
Kudos: 823





	1. Chapter 1

Bruce had figured out a long time ago that if he didn’t get up early in the morning, there was no way he was going to get everything done that he needed to get done.

To begin with, all of the kids had to be woken up, and some of them were a lot easier to wake up than others. Duke was his early bird, always popping out of bed as soon as Bruce knocked on his and Tim’s door. Sometimes he was even awake before Bruce and could be found sitting on his bed with the lamp on, reading a book.

Tim, his roommate, was Bruce’s night owl. There were mornings when Bruce could tell that Tim had been sneaky and had stayed up all night the night before. On these mornings Bruce would have to pick Tim up out of bed and carry him downstairs for breakfast. 

Cassandra wasn’t much better than Tim about staying up late, although she hid it a lot better than he did. Jason was another night owl, but he loved school enough that Bruce didn’t really have to coax him to get up and get ready. Dick was more like Duke; always chatty and energetic in the morning, even if he wasn’t the earliest to rise. Damian slept as much as any six year-old needed to, but seemed to be cranky morning, noon, and night anyway.

The morning Hal Jordan moved into the house next door was going very much like any other morning. Duke and Jason were already down in the kitchen at the table. Duke was shoveling spoonfuls of cereal into his mouth, careful not to drip milk on the crossword he was working on. Next to him, Jason was ignoring his oatmeal and instead had all of his attention devoted to a book. Alfred was trying to stop Damian from feeding Ace bits of toast from the table. Dick he hadn’t seen yet, but Bruce wasn’t going to worry about him; Dick was old enough to manage himself.

Cassandra, however, hadn’t yet emerged from her basement bedroom, and Tim hadn’t made an appearance yet either. Bruce was in the middle of making lunches, so he couldn’t stop to go make sure Tim and Cassandra were up.

As he walked by the table to stuff Damian’s lunchbox into his backpack, Bruce asked, “Duke, was Tim awake yet when you came downstairs?”

Duke looked up from his crossword and shrugged.

Bruce sighed and paused for a moment by the table. Jason had pushed his unfinished oatmeal to the side in favor of the book, yet another 700 page horror novel, by the look of it.

“Jason,” Bruce said.

Jason’s eyes didn’t leave his book. After a couple of seconds, he turned a page.

“Jason,” Bruce said again.

Duke reached over and lightly pushed on Jason’s arm.

Confused, Jason looked up from the book and stared over at Duke. Duke pointed at Bruce, and Jason’s eyes followed where he was pointing, until Bruce was finally looking his second son in the eyes.

Thanks to puberty, Jason was no longer as scrawny and thin as he had been when Bruce first found him in the group home four years ago. At fourteen, Jason was packing on muscle and swiftly outgrowing his shoes and clothes every three or four months, and all of that growing took up a lot of energy.

Which was why he really needed to eat.

“Your breakfast is cold,” Bruce said, gesturing to the oatmeal.

Jason looked around his book at the oatmeal and then scowled up at Bruce.

“I’m not hungry.”

“You say that and then you text me around 10 when I can’t do anything about it and complain about how hungry you are. If you would finish your breakfast then maybe you wouldn’t get hungry so long before lunch,” Bruce said.

“Well...I’m not hungry right now,” Jason said, shrugging as he looked back down at his book.

Bruce took this as an opportunity to get a closer look at the book. On the cover, a blurry individual in red was running into some dark woods. Bruce didn’t read a lot of horror—he usually read nonfiction if he had any extra time to read—but he was familiar with this title.

He made a grab for the book, but Jason somehow sensed he was coming and jerked it out of Bruce’s reach without even needing to look up from the page.

“Isn’t that book about vampires?” he asked.

“Yeah, so?” Jason said.

“I’m not sure how I feel about you reading horror novels for adults,” Bruce said.

“It’s not that gory,” Jason said, still not looking up from the page.

Bruce sighed and picked up Jason’s bowl of congealing oatmeal, then went back to the counter and set the bowl in the sink. He didn’t have the time to tackle Jason’s perverse interests at the moment. He needed to finish making Duke’s lunch and figure out why he hadn’t seen or heard from Tim or Cassandra yet.

Bruce glanced back across the room to see if Duke was done with his cereal and saw that he was.

“Duke, do me a favor, would you?” Bruce asked. “Go check on Cassandra downstairs and make sure she’s getting ready for school.”

Without complaint, Duke set his pencil down next to his crossword and hopped out of the chair to go to the basement.

Alfred was still busy with Damian, so Bruce looked to Jason and said, “Jason, put the book down for a minute and go upstairs to find Tim.”

Jason rolled his eyes and hissed out a sigh, but he did push the chair back from the table and get up. Bruce was hoping he’d leave the book behind, but Jason was too smart for that trick and took it with him upstairs.

Bruce was just tossing some extra protein bars into Jason’s backpack when Jason and Duke returned empty-handed.

“Tim’s not upstairs,” Jason said at the same time Duke said, “Cass isn’t downstairs.”

“They’re not in their rooms?” Bruce asked, turning to them. “Where are they? Did you check bathrooms?”

“Dick is still in the upstairs bathroom. Tim’s not in your bathroom,” Jason said, and Duke added, “No one’s in the downstairs bathroom.”

Faintly alarmed, Bruce dropped what he was doing and headed out of the kitchen into the hall. Both boys trailed him to the stairs.

“Cassandra! Tim!” he called.

He waited for a second, but there wasn’t any response.

More alarmed now, he turned back to the boys shadowing him and said, “Jason, go check the backyard.”

Jason groaned and headed for the back of the house.

Closely followed by Duke, Bruce traveled down the front hallway and turned into the living room. A quick scan of the crowded room didn’t reveal either of the missing children.

He was opening his mouth to shout for them again when he heard muffled voices through the closed library door across the front hall. Without a word, Bruce turned and headed for the library, opening the door to the dark room.

The blinds were open, and two thin dark figures were crouched down by the sill. Even in the dim light, Bruce recognized Tim’s messy head of hair and Cassandra’s choppy short locks. He loosed a breath of relief, the anxiety leaving him at once. It was replaced swiftly with a very familiar level of irritation.

“Tim, Cassandra,” he said.

Tim and Cassandra both flinched, one of them dropping something heavy that clattered on the wood floor. They turned to face him and Duke.

Bruce flicked on the light and took in their startled faces. There was a pair of binoculars on the floor at Tim’s feet.

“What are you two doing? You should be getting ready for school. Why didn’t you answer me when I called?”

Tim and Cassandra exchanged a look. Without a word, Cassandra pointed out the window.

“Are you spying on the neighbors again? Tim, we’ve talked about this,” Bruce asked. He went over to the window and picked up the binoculars at Tim’s feet, straightening again to put the binoculars up on top of the bookshelf where Tim couldn’t reach them. It wouldn’t stop Tim from retrieving them eventually, but it would take him a while to figure out how to get them down.

“Someone’s finally moving in next door,” Tim said, his gaze flickering up to the binoculars.

“I don’t care what’s happening, I don’t want you spying,” Bruce said.

Jason stomped back down the hall, yelling, “Dad! They’re not in the back—”

Jason went quiet when he saw them all in the library. He came in and asked, “What’s going on?”

“New neighbors,” Cassandra told Jason as he came to join them at the window.

“Finally!” Jason said. “They got kids?”

Tim turned back to the window immediately, peeking through the blinds as he said, “We haven’t seen any kids. Just three old guys, right Cass?”

“Three old guys?” Bruce said, stepping over to the window.

The bay window was at a slight angle and looked out toward the east side of the neighborhood. Sure enough, there was a moving van parked in front of the house next door. Bruce, Tim, Cassandra, Jason, and Duke watched silently as two men carried a dresser down the ramp, bickering as they went. Both of the men were tall and built enough that Bruce could tell they worked out regularly. One of them was white and had flaming red hair, and he appeared to be doing most of the complaining. The other man was black and had closely shaved head of inky black hair. Neither of the men looked “old.” In fact, they looked like they might be around Bruce’s age or younger.

“Are they the ‘old guys’ you were referring to?” Bruce asked Tim, pointing at them through the window.

Tim nodded.

Shaking his head, Bruce turned to take another look out the window. The house next door had been vacant for months, since the previous owner decided to retire and move to Brooklyn, of all places. It was interesting that he hadn’t heard about the house selling. He’d been under the impression that it wasn’t even on the market yet.

Outside, the two men finally managed to stop bickering long enough to get the dresser down the ramp. Bruce frowned as he studied them. Were they married? Roommates? Maybe they were just the movers. They were certainly both muscular enough to be movers.

They made their way up the walkway and through the front door, disappearing from sight.

As soon as Bruce couldn’t see them anymore, he remembered that he was supposed to be getting the kids ready for school. He forced himself to turn away from the window and looked down at Tim and Cassandra.

“Alright. That’s enough spying on the new neighbors for one day. Tim, where’s your backpack? And Cassandra, did you brush your teeth?"

Instead of answering his questions, Tim and Cassandra both glanced up at the binoculars on top of the bookshelf.

“No,” Bruce said, and their eyes snapped back to his. “We can go next door and introduce ourselves to the new neighbors later, tonight when you’re done with your homework.”

Cassandra, bless her, shrugged and slipped out of the room, barely making a sound as she traveled down the hall to go brush her teeth.

Tim was not as simple. Tim and Bruce had to stare at each other for a moment, and although Tim’s eyes never left his, Bruce could tell that his attention wasn’t solely on him. His mind got stuck on things sometimes and it was hard to get him to let go.

Fortunately, Bruce had a lot of experience with getting Tim to let things go.

They were still staring at each other when Jason said, “Jesus, Tim. They’re not going to move back out by tonight. You can be a creep later.”

Tim looked at Jason, but didn’t reply. There was another pause, and at last, Tim let out a little huff of a sigh and walked around Bruce, following his sister’s path out of the library.

Bruce turned to watch him go, arms crossed over his chest as Tim sullenly went upstairs.

When he turned back around, he found with no small amount of exasperation that Jason and Duke had somehow snuck into Tim and Cassandra’s place at the window.

“Boys,” Bruce said, and reached around Jason to lower the blinds. “Enough. Whoever they are, it can wait until after school.”

* * *

Bruce and Alfred had figured that somewhere between Jason and Tim that the work didn’t end just because the kids weren’t home.

There were rooms to clean, errands to run, meals to cook. The dog and Damian’s cat had vet appointments. Bruce was PTA president at Damian’s elementary school and Alfred was assistant coach of Duke and Cassandra’s baseball team. Both Bruce and Alfred volunteered weekly at the local food kitchen as well, and Alfred auditioned for roles at the local community theater. Sometimes it seemed like the list of things to do was never ending.

So as the morning went on and eventually turned to noon, Bruce never found a moment to mention the new neighbors to his adopted father. Before he knew it, hours had passed in a blur of laundry detergent, furniture polish, vacuuming, and meal prep for next week. In fact, the new neighbors slipped his mind entirely until they both happened to end up back downstairs in the same part of the house.

“I found Duke’s cleats!” Bruce called to Alfred as he dumped out Duke’s hamper.

“Miracles do occur,” Alfred said. “Where were they?”

“In his hamper.”

“Of course,” Alfred said.

Alfred was mopping the kitchen floor while Bruce was busy in the laundry room. Or at least Alfred was trying to mop the floor, but Ace wouldn’t stop trying to fight the mop.

“The house next door sold,” Bruce told him, turning to watch Alfred try to lift the mop out of Ace’s reach. Ace jumped up and snapped at it, wagging his tail as if Alfred was playing a game with him.

“I saw. I spotted the moving van when I was upstairs in Timothy and Duke’s room earlier this morning,” Alfred said.

“Did you get a good look at any of them?” Bruce asked.

“Just one. Caucasian fellow with brown hair.”

He must be the third “old guy,” as Tim had called them. Bruce grunted as he sorted the laundry, tossing Duke’s whites back into the hamper while the colorful t-shirts and jeans went into the washing machine.

“I told the kids we would go next door and introduce ourselves tonight,” Bruce said.

“That is a wonderful idea. I can pick up some ingredients to bake cookies for the new neighbors this afternoon when I go to the store,” Alfred said.

Bruce frowned at this and asked, “Is that still something people do? Taking baked goods to new neighbors?”

“Whether or not it is something that other people do, I have no idea. However, it is polite, so it is something that I do,” Alfred said.

Bruce nodded distractedly, shutting the washing machine. He got up and grabbed the usual lemon-scented laundry detergent he used to clean the rest of the kids’ clothes before he remembered he needed to use the special hypoallergenic kind for Duke.

“I do hope you will be more polite to the new neighbors than you were to the residence’s past occupant,” Alfred said.

Bruce stopped, the bottle of hypoallergenic detergent and its cap in his hands, and turned to look at Alfred.

“What are you talking about?” Bruce asked, frowning.

Ace had gotten his teeth into the mop. Alfred was engaged in this battle of tug of war, too busy to look up at Bruce.

“Are you pretending that you did not attempt to provoke Mr. Scott on a regular basis?”

Bruce scowled over at him before returning to his task.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I am referring to sections 12E, 14A, 28C, 33B and 33F of the HOA agreement,” Alfred said. “One does have a difficult time forgetting the addendum about lawn ornaments. And there was the memorable occasion when the local news became interested in our neighborhood’s affairs when Mr. Scott attempted to repaint his house.”

“That color green was hideous. It clashed with the entire neighborhood,” Bruce said.

“I happen to enjoy a mint green,” Alfred said.

Bruce rolled his eyes. Sometimes he thought that Alfred was contrary with him just for the fun of it.

“Well, I for one am glad that someone new has finally moved in. Now we can finally get that section of the fence fixed,” Bruce said.

In truth, Bruce could afford to have the fence fixed a long time ago. He’d inherited his birth parents’ estate after they died, and years of careful spending, hand-me-downs for the kids, sensible cars, and all but necessary upkeep of the house had allowed Bruce to keep the majority of said estate. If he really wanted the fence to be fixed, he could call somebody to start putting up a new one that very afternoon.

But he was a firm believer that neighbors should help pay for things they also benefited from. Bruce had been patching up the fence just enough to keep Ace in the yard, but now the fence could be replaced, and they could finally get rid of that gate that allowed for access between the two yards. It had remained shut but for two or three occasions while Alan Scott lived next door; there was no point in having it.

“I would let the neighbors settle in a bit before you mention the fence,” Alfred said. “Give them at least three months.”

“Three months?” Bruce said, incredulous.

“The house has been vacant since January. Who knows what needs to be fixed inside, and there was that hail storm in August. We have to give them time to fix the immediate problems before we dump the burden of the fence on them.”

Bruce sighed.

“Fine,” Bruce said, starting the laundry machine. “I can give them three months.”

He didn’t like it, but Alfred did have a point. It was a bad idea for the new neighbors to be sick of him from the very beginning.

* * *

After school and dinner that night, most of the kids helped Alfred make cookies for the new neighbors. The only ones who weren’t helping were Dick and Jason, since Dick was at practice and Jason was up in his room, glued to his horror novel.

Bruce wasn’t helping make the cookies either. Even though it was Friday, Bruce was sitting at the dinner table going over Dick’s algebra II homework, making little checkmarks next to the answers that Dick had gotten right. There were not very many checkmarks on the page. Dick was one of the state’s most talented young gymnasts, but math wasn’t his strong suit, and Bruce wanted to make sure Dick had all weekend to fix the errors before school on Monday.

He was just going over the last problem—which Dick had solved incorrectly—when Alfred slid the last of the cookies off the spatula into a plastic container.

“Alright, all done,” Alfred said. “One of you needs to go fetch Jason and tell him we’re ready to go next door.”

“I’ll get him,” Duke said, and took off out of the room before one of the other kids could volunteer.

Bruce checked the clock. It had been a cloudy September day and was dark outside, but it was still only 7:45. Hopefully the new neighbors wouldn’t be too overwhelmed by a huge crowd of children descending on them at this hour.

Slipping Dick’s assignment into his binder for him to look over again later, Bruce went through Cassandra’s notebook trying to find her English homework. Bruce was still digging through the huge stack of wrinkled paper Cassandra had stuffed in said notebook when Duke returned with Jason.

“Ah, Jason, very good,” Alfred said.

“I don’t want to go meet the new neighbors,” Jason complained. Bruce glanced up and saw he had his hands tucked into the pockets of his ratty jean jacket.

“Well, that is unfortunate, but we’re all going,” Alfred told him.

“Dick doesn’t have to go!”

“Because he is at practice,” Alfred said, ever patient. “Now, someone go fetch your father’s shoes.”

Bruce looked up from Cassandra’s binder.

“Actually I’ll stay. I’m still going over the kids’ homework,” Bruce said.

“Ten minutes, Bruce, then you can return to the homework.”

Bruce looked up and made eye contact with Alfred, who had one eyebrow raised.

Sighing, Bruce put the binder down and got up. A couple of minutes later his shoes were on and he and Alfred and the kids were walking up the path to the dark front stoop of Alan Scott’s old house.

Damian got there first and hit the doorbell two or three times too many. Bruce got there second, picking up Damian and removing him from the doorbell. Alfred, Cassandra, Jason, Duke, and Tim came up shortly behind him and Damian, Tim in the rear, peaking around the rest of them curiously. Bruce stepped to the side, getting out of Alfred’s way.

“Hold on!” someone in the house yelled.

There were footsteps inside. The porch light flickered on and then the front door was being wrenched open.

It was a man. He was a bit shorter than Bruce, and Bruce suspected younger than him as well. Even wearing a loose t-shirt, tan bomber jacket, and jeans, Bruce could tell he must work out regularly. One light brown lock of hair curled down over his forehead. 

He was extremely attractive. For a moment Bruce was stunned by it, unable to think of anything to say. The man didn’t seem to be able to know what to say either. His brown eyes widened at the sight of Bruce, Alfred, and the kids.

For a moment they all just stood there, until Alfred finally said, “Hello.”

“Oh,” the man said. “Hello.”

Bruce didn’t realize he was staring until the man’s eyes, having flickered between all of the children, met Bruce’s gaze. Bruce looked away, accidentally examining the interior of the house instead. There were still boxes all over the front entryway, piled on top of each other by the stairs.

“My name is Hal. Jordan. Hal Jordan,” he said, and Bruce looked at him again, finding that Hal was already looking at him.

Bruce cleared his throat and turned toward the rest of the family.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Bruce Wayne and this is my son Damian,” Bruce said, lifting Damian a little. Then he pointed to each of his children one by one. “Duke, Cassandra, Jason, and Tim. I have another son as well, but he’s at practice right now. And this is Alfred, my father. We live next door.”

Bruce pointed at his house. Hal looked where Bruce was pointing, taking it in. There wasn’t much to see, since it was so cloudy, and the trees in the front yard concealed most of the house anyway.

“Huh,” Hal said. “Wow. Next door. Ok.”

“We came over to introduce ourselves and welcome you to the neighborhood,” Alfred said.

“Oh, thanks,” Hal said.

“And we made you these cookies,” Alfred said, holding the plastic container out.

Hal leaned out of the doorway a little bit and took the container of cookies.

“Thanks,” he said again, eyes taking them all in again before his gaze returned again to Bruce.

Bruce felt that this was the moment where he should say something, make polite conversation. However, he’d never been great at all of the social niceties like Alfred was, and the fact that Hal was conventionally attractive only made it worse. The longer they stood there, staring at each other, the more Bruce felt as if he was out of his depth.

“So, Hal,” Alfred said, saving Bruce for the second time. “Are you new to this part of the country?”

Hal looked to Alfred, and something about his posture seemed to unwind.

“No, not at all. I grew up here in town, actually,” Hal said. “I moved out to California for a bit when I was in my early twenties, but I moved back a couple of years ago.”

“Oh, I see,” Alfred said. “Do you still have family in the area?”

Hal shook his head. “Not really, no. One of my brothers lives upstate, but my dad died when I was a kid and my mom moved out of state with my younger brother and his wife a few years back.”

“I see,” Alfred said. “And you are not married? No children?”

Hal shook his head and said, “No, not for me.”

Hal glanced at all of the kids again, almost like he couldn’t help it.

“So you’re just going to live in this big house alone?” Duke asked.

“Duke,” Bruce said, frowning at the newest member of the Wayne household.

Hal just chuckled and said, “Well, that’s the plan for now I guess.”

This, Bruce thought, was interesting. The majority of the other homes in the neighborhood were owned by husband and wife pairs, and most of them had children. Diana was single, but even she had her two nieces living with her. Bruce wondered what Hal did for a living, if he could afford to live in a four bedroom two story house by himself.

As if thinking along the same lines, Alfred asked, “And what do you do, Mr. Jordan?”

“I work for Ferris Air. I’m a test pilot,” Hal said.

Bruce looked closer at the bomber jacket and saw the Ferris Air patch on the front.

“How fascinating,” Alfred said.

From the back, Jason said, “So like, you fly airplanes?”

“Jets, mostly,” Hal said. 

“Jets,” Jason repeated, sounding faintly awed. “Cool.”

Bruce checked on his children and noticed that along with Jason, Tim, Duke and Cassandra too were staring at Hal with intense interest.

“That sounds extremely dangerous,” Bruce said sternly, hoping to discourage his children’s daredevil tendencies.

“Well, yeah, but it’s better this than a desk job, right?” Hal said. He grinned, flashing a mouth full of bright white teeth at the kids. Jason smirked back, and Cassandra had her small catlike smile on her lips. Tim and Duke laughed warily.

Damian was starting to squirm in Bruce’s arms. Perhaps it was time to leave, before Hal said anything else about the appeal of life-threatening careers.

“Well, it was nice to meet you, Hal, and it’s good to know that the house isn’t going to be sitting here vacant anymore,” Bruce said. Then he added, muttering, “For a while there I was starting to think Alan was going to let it fall apart just to spite me.”

Hal’s grin blinked out of existence, replaced by a perplexed expression.

“I’m sorry?” Hal said.

“Oh, sorry. Alan Scott. The previous owner. He and I...didn’t always get along,” Bruce explained.

Hal frowned and cocked his head, and then he said, “Yeah, I know Alan. He’s my great uncle. He gave me the house.”

Cold dread formed in the pit of Bruce’s stomach.

“I...wasn’t aware that Alan had any family,” Bruce said, looking back to Hal.

Hal was still studying Bruce, eyes narrowed. Recognition seemed to occur to him suddenly, and he pointed at Bruce.

“Wait, you’re not the guy who freaked out when Uncle Alan tried to repaint, are you?” he asked.

Bruce almost sighed.

“It wasn’t the fact that Alan repainted that I took issue with,” Bruce explained.

“He told me about you. I should have made the connection when you introduced all the kids,” Hal said, and then looked Bruce up and down, still smiling and eyeing Bruce in a way that Bruce couldn’t decipher. After a beat he added, “You do not look how I imagined you when Uncle Alan told me about the paint thing.”

“Well,” Bruce said, and it took all of Bruce’s willpower to keep annoyance from creeping into his tone. “Like I said, it was nice meeting you, but Alfred and I should get the kids home.”

“Yeah, of course,” Hal said. He was still giving Bruce that odd look.

“Goodbye, Mr. Jordan,” Alfred said.

“See you,” Hal said, finally looking away from Bruce to wave at Alfred and the kids with his free hand. “Thanks for the cookies.”

“You’re welcome,” Alfred said, and then he and Duke began walking back down the path to the sidewalk.

Tim and Cassandra eyed Hal and then bolted, cutting across the yard to the house. Jason didn’t take his hands out of his pockets, barely acknowledging Hal at all as he turned and followed Duke and Alfred.

“See you around,” Hal said to Bruce.

Bruce nodded and turned as well, following Alfred, Jason, and Duke. He and Damian had just made it to the end of the path when he heard Hal’s front door shut behind him.

Alfred lingered behind the kids and waited for Bruce to catch up to him.

“Don’t say it,” Bruce said, walking right past him, and followed the kids back into the house.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alfred puts out fires.

Bruce was up bright and early the next morning, ready to mow the lawn. It was a little chilly outside that morning, so he put on a sweatshirt before he headed out of the house.

The Wayne household’s lot was bigger than the other lots in the neighborhood, but thanks to Alfred’s efforts, most of it was covered in trees and gardens. What little grass remained was Bruce’s responsibility, since he’d banned Alfred from mowing the lawn on his own a couple of years back.

Bruce mowed the backyard first, letting his mind drift off with all the noise and exertion. The sun was just creeping up over the remains of yesterday’s clouds as he finished up the back, making Bruce sweat in his hoodie.

As he brought the lawn mower around to the front of the house, Bruce saw one of the neighbors, Barry, sprinting down the street. Barry jogged every morning, rain or shine. They waved at each other as he passed, but Barry didn’t stop running. Bruce resumed mowing.

Bruce had just reached the sidewalk when he caught sight of something in the corner of his eye.

The new neighbor—Hal Jordan—was standing on his front stoop. He was shirtless, but wearing a pair of yellow and green flannel pajama pants. His hair looked sleep-tousled, but in an almost deliberate way, like how an actor’s hair is styled to look messy in a film. And he was staring, eyes narrowed, in Bruce’s direction.

Bruce could see just how much Hal’s loose t-shirt had concealed the night before. His waist seemed impossibly small, but tapered up into broad muscular chest and shoulders. Bruce felt a swoop in the pit of his stomach and looked away.

Bruce finished up mowing, determined to appear as if he hadn’t noticed Hal at all. It must’ve worked, because when he turned around again, Hal’s front stoop was empty and the front door was shut yet again.

* * *

Bruce wasted a couple of hours working on his car in the garage after he was done with the lawn. By the time he made it into the house for breakfast, even his latest sleepers were finally up and most of them were gathered around the kitchen table. The only children who were missing from the table were Cassandra and Dick.

“—get your nasty elbows away from my food, Tim!” Jason snapped, shoving Tim’s arm away from his with his own elbow.

“Jason, please don’t talk that way to Tim that way,” Bruce said, going around the island to the counter. “And don’t hit him either.” 

“If he’d just stay out of my space—”

“If you want him to stay out of your space, then ask politely. There is no reason to yell,” Bruce said.

Jason glowered, first at Tim, then at Bruce.

Bruce frowned at Jason again as he bit into one of Alfred’s muffins. After working in the yard and garage all morning, he was filthy and sweaty. He wanted to run upstairs to take a shower, not pull his children out of a fistfight.

Jason shot Tim another nasty look and then glared down at his breakfast. He muttered something under his breath that Bruce didn’t catch, but Bruce didn’t _need_ to hear him. He’d listened to Jason grumble about things enough times to be able to use his imagination.

Duke nudged Jason with his arm, trying to get his attention, and when Jason turned to ask him what he wanted Bruce finally relaxed.

“All done with the yard?” Alfred asked. He was at the kitchen sink, washing down the muffin tray.

Bruce bit into his muffin again and grunted, nodding as he chewed.

“Where’s Cassandra?” Bruce asked.

“She ate already and she’s getting ready for practice,” Alfred said.

“And Dick?”

“He said he was going to spend the weekend with Wally,” Alfred said.

“I’m surprised Wally wasn’t out jogging with Barry this morning.”

“I think the boys intend to go to the renaissance fair,” Alfred said.

Thinking about the neighbors made Bruce remember the glimpse he’d caught of the _other_ neighbor—the new neighbor.

“Hal stepped out on his porch this morning while I was mowing the lawn. For a minute there I thought he was going to say something to me, but then he just turned around and went back into the house,” Bruce said.

“You didn’t speak to him?” Alfred asked.

Bruce wandered over to the refrigerator to get some orange juice and said, “No. Why would I?”

“I assumed that you would seize the first opportunity to apologize,” Alfred said.

Bruce turned at the refrigerator with the orange juice in his hand and frowned over at his adoptive father.

“Why would I apologize?” he asked.

Alfred snorted.

“You did insult the man who gave him a house,” Alfred pointed out.

“I would hardly call what I said insulting. I pointed out that Alan was a thorn in my side, that was all,” Bruce said.

Alfred clucked his tongue doubtfully.

“I think there’s more cause for him to apologize than me,” Bruce said, ignoring Alfred. “He said that Alan told him stories about me. Whatever it was that he said, it couldn’t be anything positive.”

“Whatever Alan said is not Hal’s fault. And can you really blame the man?”

“Alan was ridiculous and irresponsible,” Bruce said.

“I got along with him just fine,” Alfred said.

Bruce glared at the back of Alfred’s head, but couldn’t think of anything to say to that. It was true that Alfred had never found Alan quite as annoying as Bruce had.

“I do hope you’ll learn how to get along with this new neighbor. I would hate to have to experience your war with the person in the house next door yet again,” Alfred said.

Bruce rolled his eyes, but still didn’t say anything. By and large, he didn’t have any problems with any of the other people who lived in the neighborhood beyond the occasional spat over trivial cosmetic issues. It was unreasonable to expect to get along with everyone.

That being said, he didn’t love the idea of being at odds with the new neighbor either. But somehow Bruce could already feel Hal getting under his skin. It was something about the way he’d looked at Bruce the previous night, like Bruce was some species of creature he’d never seen before.

“I will get along with Hal just fine if he decides to be a good neighbor,” Bruce said.

Alfred sighed.

“Well, let us all hope that is true,” Alfred said.

There was a sudden screech and Bruce looked up to see that Jason had pushed his chair away from the table.

“I’m sick of this fucking house! I never get any space!” Jason roared.

“Jason!” Bruce snapped. “Language!”

Jason ignored him, pointing a finger at Tim, shaking with barely controlled rage.

“And it’s always you!”

“Now, now,” Alfred said, in that usual way of his, his tone somehow rising above the rest of the noise even when he didn’t raise his voice. “What happened?”

“Tim won’t get away from me!” Jason said. His face was rapidly turning red.

“I was just reaching for the peanut butter!” Tim protested, and turning beseeching eyes up to Bruce. “I asked him to pass it to me but he ignored me!”

Jason had been retreating to the stairs, but when Tim spoke, he turned again, taking a couple of steps back toward his younger brother.

“I didn’t hear you ask for anything! You did it on purpose because you know it gets on my nerves!” Jason yelled at him.

“Jason, stop,” Bruce said. “Tim, Jason did tell you that he didn’t want you intruding in his space.”

Tim frowned, eyes slightly narrowed at Bruce in an expression of betrayal. Tim often acted as if Jason attacked him without cause, but Bruce knew better. It was like some part of Tim couldn’t help but provoke him.

“Next time if he’d just listen,” Tim muttered, shooting a dark look at Jason.

This was, apparently, the breaking point for Jason. Bruce realized what was going to happen a second before Jason lunged for Tim, pulling him out of his chair.

“Jason! No!” Bruce said, darting around the table.

Alfred made a beeline for Tim, and Bruce went for Jason. It couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, but by the time they were prying the boys apart, Jason had punched Tim once and Tim had kicked Jason in the shin.

“Boys!” Alfred said, his tone dark with disapproval. “This is unacceptable behavior!”

Jason flailed in Bruce’s grasp, but Bruce was far too strong for him. After some pointless wriggling, he at last stilled and went limp in Bruce’s arms. Tim was clinging to Alfred like a lifeline, as if he hadn’t been as intent upon hurting Jason just now as Jason was on hurting him.

At the table, Duke and Damian had paused to watch the morning’s drama. Duke seemed concerned, but Damian looked amused by it all. At six, Damian was alarmingly bloodthirsty.

“Jason, you’re grounded this weekend,” Bruce said.

“He kicked me! He should be grounded too!” Jason said.

“And he shouldn’t have, but I’m not going to punish him for defending himself. You’re the instigator, you’re the one who gets punished,” Bruce said.

“He’s the instigator, he’s the one who wouldn’t get away from me!” Jason bellowed.

“Jason!” Bruce snapped. “Enough!”

Jason grew tense in Bruce’s arms, but said nothing. When Bruce finally let go of him, Jason shoved his arm away and stormed upstairs without a look back.

Bruce sighed as Alfred let go of Tim. Tim was still staring after Jason, gingerly feeling the spot on his cheek where Jason had punched him.

“Are you alright, Tim?” Alfred asked. “How does your cheek feel? Is it broken?”

Tim looked up to Alfred with wide, guileless eyes and shook his head.

“I’m fine. Can I go to Con’s?” Tim asked Alfred. “I don’t want to be around _him_.”

“If Conner invites you over today, then yes. Text me when you get to his house,” Alfred said.

Bruce put his hands on his hips and watched Tim as he edged around him and slipped out of the room, feeling the usual combination of frustration and concern. He would stand by his decision, that much he knew already. Tim wasn’t the instigator, so he wouldn’t get punished, but Bruce didn’t buy his innocent act for a second.

“Con’s house?” Bruce asked Alfred as soon as Tim was gone.

Alfred shook his head.

“You did say he wasn’t grounded. Who am I to go against his father’s word?” Alfred said.

Bruce sighed.

“Duke, how about you go find Cassandra and make sure she’s getting ready for practice? You need to go get ready as well. I put your cleats in your duffle bag,” Alfred said, shooting Duke a significant look.

Duke, smart as he was, understood that he was being dismissed. He slid out of his chair and bolted out of the room.

That left Bruce and Alfred alone, save for Damian, who was a little too young to understand what was going on anyway.

As soon as Duke was out of earshot, Alfred swooped his dirty plate off the table and said, “I’m concerned about Jason.”

“In general or because of this fight in particular?” Bruce asked.

“Does it not appear that he has spent quite a bit of time in a foul mood as of late?” Alfred asked.

“He’s always fighting with Tim,” Bruce said.

“Yes, but he seems more aggressive than usual, and not solely in Tim’s direction. He’s already received in school suspension twice this year. And it’s only September!”

Bruce thought about it.

“If you ask me, he needs friends,” Alfred said.

“Jason has friends.”

“He has friends, but he does not have any friends that he sees on a regular basis. His foul moods have been increasing in frequency ever since Artemis and Biz moved out of town.”

Bruce frowned.

He knew Jason had been viciously disappointed when Artemis and Biz both announced that they were moving away over the summer, but he’d been confident that Jason would find other people to hang out with fast. All of his children were social butterflies, after all. Dick had hordes of friends, and Tim had Con, Bart, and Cassie. Cassandra had Stephanie and the rest of the baseball team, and now Duke was falling in with the baseball team as well. Damian didn’t have friends, but he was only six, and he had his cat and the dog to fill in that gap. Bruce had been sure that Jason would move on and find someone else to hang out with eventually.

“He talks to you all the time about school. Hasn’t he mentioned anything?” Bruce asked Alfred.

“Oh, he talks about school all the time. His homework, his classes, his teachers. But I think he eats alone at lunch, or gets lunch with Dick when Dick is feeling charitable toward his younger brother. I know he is texting Artemis and Biz on a regular basis and they play video games together over the internet on Sunday nights, but one wonders if that is enough.”

Bruce frowned as he thought about it. Perhaps it was true that Jason did seem to be more on edge lately than usual. Even the littlest things seemed to set him off, and he was spending quite a bit of time hidden away in his room.

“Maybe we should encourage him to join a team. Remember how Duke was when he first came to live with us? Playing on the baseball team with Cass has worked wonders for him,” Bruce said.

Alfred, however, started shaking his head before Bruce was even done talking.

“I’ve suggested that already. He says he doesn’t want to get involved in anything that will take time away from his schoolwork.”

“What about his AP English class? Doesn’t he like any of the other kids in that class?” Bruce asked. English was by far Jason’s favorite subject.

“He says all of the kids in that class are ‘embossed carbuncles in his corrupted blood,’’” Alfred said. “That is a _King Lear_ reference, for the unfamiliar.”

In spite of himself, Bruce snorted out a laugh.

“Well, I will give the problem some thought, but Jason’s fourteen now. It’s not like we can set up some play dates and force him to socialize,” Bruce said.

Alfred sighed again, long-suffering.

“Indeed. It is so much easier when they are younger.”

As if intending to disprove this statement, Damian tossed his spoon across the kitchen. It bounced off the refrigerator and hit the floor with a clang, sliding under the oven.

“It seems I spoke too soon,” Alfred said, heading at once to fish the spoon out.

Bruce closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Sometimes he wondered if parenthood was this hard for everybody, or if he was just lucky in some special way. 

* * *

Alfred, Duke, and Cassandra left for baseball practice not long after breakfast, and the rest of the day passed in a blur. With Alfred gone for most of the day, that meant Bruce was the sole person around to keep an eye on Damian. He took Damian and Ace for a walk in the local park, then got home to make Damian and Jason lunch. Damian took a nap after lunch, but was up after little more than an hour wanting to play in the backyard. By the time Alfred and Cass and Duke were home and showered after baseball practice, it was almost time to start making dinner.

Dinner too passed in a blur. Afterwards, Cass went to Stephanie’s house for the night and Duke retreated to the den to play video games. Dick sent a text around 7 saying he’d be staying over at Wally’s house again and also that he needed a new singlet. Not long after he got the text from Dick he got another from Tim saying he and Bart were staying the night at Conner’s house.

Jason spent the majority of the day up in his bedroom. He’d finished his horror book about the vampire and moved on to _Howards End_ , one of Alfred’s recommendations. With a book in his hands he didn’t appear to be bothered by being grounded at all, and Bruce didn’t have the heart to ground Jason from reading, of all things.

With Damian asleep for the night and Duke preoccupied by video games, Bruce went up to his own room and got ready for bed. He was pleased that he had some time to do some reading of his own, as he was slowly making his way through a fascinating book about American pirates.

He’d just shut the bedroom door and was about to pull off his shirt when he heard the noise.

For a moment Bruce was confused, thinking the noise was coming from his own house. Was Duke playing his video games too loud? It soon became apparent, however, that the noise was coming from another direction. Bruce wandered over to the window next to his bathroom and pulled up the blinds.

The two houses were too close together for Bruce to be able to see the front of the house next door out of this particular window. The only view he’d ever gotten was one right into the master bedroom. It did, however, also look down upon a window into Alan—Hal’s—kitchen.

The kitchen light was on over there, so Bruce could easily see that it was packed with people. They were holding beers and laughing, talking over the music. A woman with short blonde hair, smiling, threw herself into the arms of one of the biggest men Bruce had ever seen.

He could see boxes still sitting on the floor, unopened and unpacked. Hal Jordan was having a party and he hadn’t even bothered to fully move into his house yet.

Annoyed, Bruce closed the blinds. He went back out of his room, down the hall, and headed downstairs.

Unfortunately, he ran into Alfred on his way to the front door.

“I thought you were going up to read,” Alfred said. He was holding a cup of tea, clearly on his way to bed as well.

“I was, but then I heard all of the racket coming from next door,” Bruce said.

Alfred frowned. “What racket?”

“The music, Alfred. Hal Jordan is having some kind of party.”

“I can’t hear any music over the noise Duke’s video game is making,” Alfred said.

“Well I can hear it over on the other side of the house and I don’t want it disturbing the children.”

As Bruce went over to the hall closet to put on his shoes, Alfred leveled him with an unamused expression. It annoyed Bruce when Alfred looked at him the same way he looked at one of the children when they were misbehaving, so he pretended he didn’t see it.

“Bruce, stop,” he said.

Bruce dropped his shoes and turned back around to face Alfred.

“It’s my house, and I’m the president of the HOA. I have every right to go next door to address a noise complaint.”

“You’re making a mountain out of a molehill. It’s Saturday night, it’s only 9:30, and except for you no one else in the house has even noticed the noise,” Alfred said, and added dryly, “I would think you would be as accustomed to loud noises and music as the rest of us by now.”

“Sometimes it’s important for ground rules to be established right from the beginning,” Bruce said. “Remember Dick when he first moved in? We ignored how he was always climbing up things until that day he climbed up to the roof and wouldn’t come down.”

“Hal Jordan is not a ten year-old,” Alfred said. “If the situation worsens we will deal with it. For now, let it go and let him have his housewarming party.”

“Alfred—”

“Bruce, I forbid you from going next door.”

Bruce put his hands on his hips and glared at Alfred. Alfred appeared unaffected, not breaking eye contact as he drank a sip of his tea.

Neither of them spoke for a moment. The cheery music from Duke’s video game echoed down the hall, disguising any evidence of a party happening next door. Maybe he _was_ being a little hasty.

“Fine,” Bruce said.

He picked up his boots and took them back over to the hall closet. When he shut the door, he might have been a little more forceful than necessary.

As he passed Alfred on his way back to the stairs he said, “But if he has another party this week I am going to say something. I’ll put up with this on Friday and Saturday nights _to a point_. But if he insists upon acting like a frat boy on school nights we’ll have words.”

Alfred sounded faintly bemused when he said, “Yes, I imagine you will have words.”

Bruce ignored him and headed back up to the master bedroom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Introducing: a subplot about Jason.
> 
> Thanks for reading and Happy New Year!


	3. Chapter 3

Bruce was extremely cranky when he woke the next day.

He could concede that Alfred was right; the party hadn’t been that disruptive, and it wasn’t a school night, so there was no reason for Bruce to go next door and complain. But accepting that Alfred had been right didn’t mean Bruce was going to cheer up about the whole situation.

Some feeling of unease was setting his nerves on edge. He was self-aware enough to realize that he was being territorial, but at the same time didn’t know how to stop. Something about Hal Jordan’s presence in the neighborhood gave Bruce pangs of anxiety, and the thought there was nothing he could do about it all just made him that much more annoyed.

Bruce’s terrible mood persisted through lunchtime. Since Alfred had lunch plans with one of his old theater friends, the kids had no choice but to put up with Bruce’s crankiness.

It was just Duke, Damian, and Jason at lunch that day, since Cassandra was still at Stephanie’s, Tim was still at Conner’s house, and Dick had yet to make an appearance all weekend. Cooking wasn’t his strong suit, especially the vegetarian meals Damian had been demanding ever since he spent a long week with his mother back in July, so Bruce heated up some of Alfred’s leftover vegan curry for himself and the kids.

“Where’s the salt?” Jason asked as soon as Bruce set his plate down in front of him.

“It doesn’t need salt,” Bruce said.

“Alfred never puts enough salt in the curry,” Jason said.

“Just try it, Jason. Too much salt is bad for you anyway.”

Jason wrinkled his nose and picked up his spoon.

“Where’s Alfred?” Jason asked.

“He’s having lunch with a friend. Eat.”

Bruce heated his food up last and sat down at the table with the kids. He began eating without enthusiasm, noting at the first spoonful of curry that it did indeed need salt, but he was in too bad of a mood to admit defeat and go get it. Jason seemed just as unenthusiastic about the meal, Damian was mostly eating the bread, and Duke was eating a lot of rice and not much of anything else.

“Do you not like it?” Bruce asked Duke.

Duke shot a sideways look at Jason and said, “It’s a little spicy.”

Bruce sighed, and Jason seemed to view this as some kind of defeat, because he got up and fetched the salt.

After making a couple of sandwiches for Duke and Damian, Bruce finally got to eat his own lunch, though it was cold by the time he finally sat back down. He ate it anyway.

Duke and Jason were quietly having a discussion about some movie and Damian was fidgeting in his chair when Bruce’s phone screen lit up with a notification. Bruce picked up his phone, checking the message.

Dick: Did you get the text about how I need a new singlet?

Bruce quickly tapped out a response.

Bruce: You have to actually come home for me to be able to take you to go get a new singlet.

Dick’s response was immediate.

Dick: So we can do that today?

Bruce: Yes.

Dick: Cool, I’ll be home in about ten minutes

Bruce texted a quick “see you soon” and finished the rest of his lunch.

“I didn’t think it was as scary as people were saying it was going to be,” Jason was telling Duke.

Duke shot Jason a bewildered look and said, “Don’t you remember the part where the mom is up in the corner of the room and he’s like sitting on the bed and doesn’t realize she’s there? I almost peed my pants when I noticed she was up there.”

“Yeah I remember it, but I didn’t think it was that scary,” Jason said. “Demon movies always pull sh—have scenes like that.”

“Demon movies?” Bruce asked, interrupting the discussion.

Jason and Duke exchanged a look.

“You boys aren’t watching demon movies behind my back, I hope,” Bruce said.

“No,” Jason said.

“What was the movie called?” Bruce asked.

Without missing a beat Jason said, “The Exorcism of Emily Rose. You said we could watch that one, remember?”

Bruce was almost positive Jason was lying, but he could hardly remember that movie, so he wasn’t sure. He leveled Jason with a serious expression and said, “Well I hope you will be careful when recommending movies to your siblings.”

“I am,” Jason said.

Bruce sighed and changed the subject.

“Dick needs a new singlet so we’re going to the sporting goods store,” he told them.

“Pass,” Jason said.

“No, we’re all going,” Bruce said. “Clean up your plate and go get ready to leave.”

Jason grumbled under his breath but got up to put his plate in the sink. Duke lingered at the table, tapping the rim of his plate with his fingers but not getting up. He seemed to want to say something, but wouldn’t actually come out and say it.

“What is it, Duke?” Bruce asked.

“Um, if we’re going to the sporting goods store…”

Duke trailed off and looked awkward.

“Do you need something for baseball?” Bruce asked.

“A new glove?” Duke said, finally meeting Bruce’s gaze. “I’ve been using one of Cass’s old gloves, but her hands are are pretty small.”

“You can pick out a new glove too,” Bruce said.

Duke’s face lit up and he pushed away from the table, picking up his plate to go drop it in the sink before he ran out of the room to get his shoes.

“Come on, Damian,” Bruce said.

“No,” Damian said, and shook his head.

“We’re all going,” Bruce said again.

“I want to stay here.”

Bruce sighed.

He went around the table and bent down to pick Damian up, but Damian grabbed the armrests and wouldn’t let go. Bruce tried to pick him up, but the chair just came right along with him.

He was still trying to get Damian out of the chair when Dick breezed into the house, carrying nothing with him except for his phone and the clothes on his back.

“Hey Dad,” Dick said.

Damian gave up on staying in the chair as soon as he saw his older brother and wriggled out of Bruce’s grasp, running for Dick. Dick picked him up and crushed him in a hug. Damian pretended to be annoyed about it, but Bruce knew Damian was secretly pleased.

“Nice to see you, Dick,” Bruce said.

“Have you seen my gym bag?” Dick asked. He turned with Damian in his arms, looking around the kitchen as if it might be sitting on the floor next to the back door or stuffed under the table.

“Why would I have seen your gym bag? You left practice on Friday night with one of your friends and you haven’t come home all weekend,” Bruce said.

“Oh,” Dick said. Then he shrugged, apparently unconcerned that his gym bag as missing. “So, are we ready?”

“If you can coax Jason into the car, then yes.”

Bruce went to go find his keys. 

* * *

Duke ran off to go look at the baseball equipment as soon as they got through the doors. Dick took Damian with him to go try on singlets, so that left Bruce and Jason to decide what they were going to do in the shop.

“Is there anything you want to look at?” Bruce asked Jason.

Jason’s bored gaze drifted over to a display of exercise balls and said, “Nah.”

For lack of other objectives, Bruce and Jason began making their leisurely way toward the baseball equipment and Duke. Duke was just old enough to desire a little bit of independence, but still young enough to need someone watching over him. Bruce knew he’d get tense if he went too long without checking on him, but didn’t want Duke to feel too smothered at the same time. It was tough to strike the right balance.

Jason didn’t seem interested in anything that they passed, or hardly even seem to notice where they were. He was humming something under his breath and avoiding eye contact with all of the employees wandering around stocking fishing tackle and putting clothes back on racks. Bruce caught a couple of the employees giving Jason’s ripped jeans and holey red beanie side-eyed looks and found himself simultaneously wishing Jason would dress nicer and that people would be less judgmental.

Then Bruce saw the shoes and tapped Jason on the shoulder, indicating he should follow. Jason walked with him over to that side of the store without complaint and said nothing while Bruce looked at the running shoes.

“Want to look at some shoes?” Bruce asked, looking pointedly down at Jason’s stained and tearing high tops. They had been maroon originally, but had turned into a murky brown at some point. Jason had a tendency to wear things until they were long past their usefulness. He was unique among Bruce’s children that way.

Jason grunted unhelpfully at Bruce’s question.

Bruce made a mental note to tell Alfred to order Jason some new high tops and went to ask a salesperson to bring him some running shoes in his size.

Weirdly, Jason didn’t wander away while Bruce was trying on the shoes.

“Have you ever thought about joining a team?” Bruce asked him. Alfred said he’d already had this conversation with Jason, but Bruce wanted to hear what Jason had to say for himself.

“What kind of team?” Jason asked.

“I’m talking about athletics. Soccer. Hockey. Football,” Bruce said.

“You think I want to play football and get so much brain damage that I can’t pass my classes?” Jason asked. “Besides, the sports teams take up too much time.”

“Ok, so no sports. What about a club? Like the newspaper staff or...theater,” Bruce said.

“Those aren’t clubs at my school, they’re classes. And no, I don’t want to join a club,” he said.

“Remind me what your extracurriculars are?”

“Study hall and shop,” Jason said.

So, a class where people were supposed to study, not talk, and a class where it was too loud to talk. It was as if Jason _wanted_ to be entirely isolated.

“You don’t think something like the newspaper staff would look better on college applications?” Bruce asked. “Or you could try to learn an instrument. Get out of your comfort zone.”

Jason’s eyes rolled toward the heavens. Jason was a gifted eye-roller, a true master. None of the other kids managed to convey so much disdain with so minor a reaction.

“Can we go to the bookstore before we go home?” Jason asked, gracelessly changing the subject. Bruce suspected that Jason was unconcerned about grace.

“I buy you books and then you read them in a week and then they sit around collecting dust in your bedroom,” Bruce said.

“Can we?” Jason asked.

Bruce sighed and said, “Yes, I suppose.”

Jason didn't bother to say thank you. Instead he stood up from where he was leaning on the display and walked away.

“Where are you going?” Bruce called after him.

“Bathroom!” Jason said, and kept going.

Bruce shook his head as he watched Jason walk away. Sometimes he had no idea what to do with the boy.

* * *

Bruce read the newspaper in the living room after dinner that night, occasionally pausing to shout helpful tips to Cassandra, Duke, and Tim, who were doing their homework in the kitchen. He was halfway through an explanation about dangling participles when the muffled bass caught his attention.

The sound was coming from Hal Jordan’s house.

_Unbelievable,_ Bruce thought.

Bruce halted his dangling participle explanation and got up, tossing the newspaper down on the chair he’d just vacated. He could tell the kids were watching him from the kitchen, but he didn’t stop to explain himself or tell them where he was going.

He’d just turned out of the living room entryway when he ran into Alfred—or he would have, if he hadn’t caught himself before smacking right into him.

“Where are you going with so much haste?” Alfred asked.

“I’m going next door,” Bruce said, moving to get around him.

Alfred stepped back into his path.

“ _Bruce_ ,” he said.

“We talked about this, Alfred. I told you that if he decided to throw a party on a school night that I would go over there and talk to him. So that’s what I’m doing,” Bruce said.

“That had better be all you are about to do,” Alfred said.

Bruce shook his head, going around Alfred, and this time Alfred didn’t try to stop him.

“I’m not going to fight the neighbor. I’m just going to explain the situation to him so that he understands,” Bruce said.

Alfred watched but said nothing as Bruce pulled his shoes on. He heard a small sigh as he went through the door, but Alfred’s disapproval could only stop him up to a point. Alan Scott had been a problem, no matter what Alfred claimed, and if Hal Jordan proved to be a problem then Bruce wasn’t going to put up with him either.

There were cars parked all along the curb in front of Hal Jordan’s house. They were parked in front of Bruce’s house as well, and in front of the houses across the street. There was plenty of light streaming out of the windows, enough that Bruce could see clearly what was happening inside the house as he approached. Bruce spotted a rather tall woman with short black hair talking to the huge individual Bruce had noticed the night before. The big man said something to her that was apparently so funny that it caused her to spit out her drink all over him. Around them, other partygoers saw this happen and cracked up laughing. How she’d even been able to hear what the big man had said over the sound of the music was a mystery to Bruce.

He went right up to the front door and banged on it three times with his fist.

The seconds ticked by, and Bruce waited. Music was still pounding inside the house and Bruce could hear people laughing and shouting over each other to be heard. It was entirely possible that it was so loud in there that no one had heard his knock.

He was just raising his hand to pound on the door again when it was wrenched open, light and music spilling out into the night.

The door had been opened by a man with bright red hair. He leaned up against the frame, eyeing Bruce up and down.

The redheaded man’s face was mostly chin. Even without him having said a word, something about the particular twist of his mouth made him seem punchable.

He also looked vaguely familiar. After a couple of seconds, the reason why clicked. Bruce had seen this man before. He was one of the men who’d been at the house on Friday morning, helping unload the moving van.

Bruce was just about to greet him when the man opened his mouth and burped.

The burp was so loud that Bruce had no trouble hearing it over the throbbing bass. It was also pointed; the fact that the man held his gaze and drank another long sip of his beer instead of immediately apologizing afterwards was evidence enough of that.

Bruce said nothing.

“Who the hell are you?” the redhead finally asked.

“I’m Bruce Wayne. I live next door. Where is Hal Jordan?” Bruce asked him.

“He’s busy,” the man said.

Another figure appeared behind the man and said, “Guy, what are you—?”

He stopped as soon as he saw Bruce standing on the front porch. It was the other man from Friday, the black man with the closely-shaved hair. He was just a bit taller than his redheaded companion and had some of the sharpest cheekbones Bruce had ever seen.

“Can we help you with something?” the new man asked, more civil than the redhead, but Bruce could still hear the underlying tone of unfriendliness. Apparently all of Hal Jordan’s friends had something in common: they were assholes.

“He says he wants to talk to Hal,” the redhead—Guy—said.

“So go get him,” the other man said.

Guy frowned at him and said, “Fuck you, you go get him.”

Bruce was just about to interrupt when Hal Jordan himself appeared.

“What the hell are you two idiots doing standing—?”

Guy and the other man stepped out of the way, and Hal’s eyes landed on Bruce.

“Oh,” Hal said.

There was a sweating beer in Hal’s hand, the label half peeled off. He was wearing a loose green henley and faded blue jeans. Bruce didn’t know him that well, but he had a feeling that faded blue jeans were a staple in Hal’s wardrobe.

“Bruce, right?” Hal said. He had to yell a bit over the music. “What can I do for you?”

“Can I speak to you outside for a moment?” Bruce asked.

“Sorry?” Hal said, leaning out of the doorway to hear him better.

“Can I speak to you outside!” Bruce said, voice raised perhaps a little louder than it needed to be.

Hal exchanged a glance with his two friends and handed his beer to the redhead, saying, “Keep an eye on this for me.”

The redhead was already trying to pass Hal’s beer off to his friend as the door was shutting on them. Bruce appreciated the privacy as well as the break from the terrible music.

Hal Jordan stepped down off the front porch and onto the path.

“So,” Hal said, grinning at him in a way he probably thought was harmless and charming, “what was it that you needed to talk to me about?”

Bruce didn’t see the point of skirting around the issue.

“Your music is too loud. It’s a school night and my kids need their sleep. I would appreciate it if you and your friends could keep it down,” Bruce told him.

Hal Jordan’s brown eyes widened a fraction. He didn’t stop smiling, but Bruce saw the incredulity creep into his eyes.

“It’s, what, seven thirty? Eight?” Hal said. “A little early for kids their age to be going to bed, right?”

Bruce’s jaw clenched. He had to force to not grind his teeth together.

“It’s almost nine and I have a six year old who goes to bed early,” Bruce said, in as civil of a tone as he could manage. “Not to mention you’re disturbing the rest of the neighborhood.”

Hal’s eyes narrowed, and then that expression was back, the same one Bruce had noticed the other night. Just as before, Bruce couldn’t quite decipher what it meant, but there was an edge to it that felt mocking, like Bruce was being sized up in Hal’s mind and was coming up short.

Hal nodded and said, “Right, the six year old. Well, I can turn the music down no problem if that’s what the kid needs.” He shrugged in a languid way, a move that was barely a shrug at all.

Somehow this just irritated Bruce all the more. Hal was radiating magnanimity and reasonableness, as if it was good of him to turn down his terrible music on a Sunday night when the rest of the neighborhood was getting ready for bed.

“Is this going to become a regular occurrence?” Bruce asked.

“I’m sorry?” Hal said, frowning at last.

“The parties,” Bruce said, gesturing through the window.

Hal glanced back towards his house. He seemed puzzled, as if he didn’t understand the question.

“I can’t say,” Hal said.

“Well, I hope it isn’t,” Bruce said, and turned to go.

He only made it a couple of steps down the pathway before Hal said, “I’m sorry. Do you have some kind of issue with me?”

Bruce stopped, half-turning back towards Hal.

“I don’t know you. The issue I have is with the noise currently coming from your house,” Bruce said.

“You don’t seem to like me very much. Which is weird considering I only moved in two days ago,” he said.

“Again, the problem that I have is with the noise,” Bruce said. “It’s disturbing the neighborhood. If you’d keep your music at a reasonable level I wouldn’t be here right now.”

“You didn’t seem to have any problem disturbing the neighborhood when you were mowing your lawn at 6 a.m. on a Saturday morning,” Hal said.

Bruce remembered yesterday morning with a jolt. Hal had come out of his house and stared at Bruce, and Bruce had wondered why. Before Bruce could respond, however, Hal put up his hands and said, “Maybe this is a neighborhood full of early risers, though. I’m new around here.”

He seemed amused again, and Bruce was more annoyed than ever.

“I would hardly compare caring for my house”—he let his gaze dart around the brown and patchy state of Hal Jordan’s grass—“to your throwing parties on school nights like a full grown frat boy.”

“Alright, Gramps, you win,” Hal said, in a tone of an adult humoring a child. “I’ll stay off your lawn.”

“Next time I won’t bother stopping by to have a rational conversation. I’ll just call the police,” Bruce told him.

Something dark flashed in Hal’s eyes.

“Really?” he said. "You'd call the cops on me?" 

“I will if I believe your behavior is in any way negatively affecting my children,” Bruce said. 

He turned and left, this time determined to keep going no matter what Hal called out at him.

“Affecting them or affecting you?” Hal said, shouting the question as Bruce walked away.

Bruce didn’t take the bait. Hal must’ve lingered for a moment on the porch, watching him leave, because Bruce didn’t hear him go back inside until he’d almost reached the entrance to his own house. Then he heard Hal Jordan slam his front door, not too hard, but just enough to make a point.

Bruce went back inside his own house as well.

He took off his shoes again in the entryway, and didn’t bother to glance into the kitchen on his way to the den. He went right back to his chair and picked up his newspaper again. As he sat down, he saw in his peripheral vision that Alfred had joined the kids at the table.

“Well?” Alfred said.

Bruce snapped the newspaper and gazed at the headlines, trying to remember what he’d been reading before he got up.

Next door, the volume of the music lowered slightly. Then it was fading and fading until Bruce could barely hear it at all.

“I think I got my message across,” Bruce said, and he went on reading his paper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am very tired as I'm posting this so I'm sorry if you see any mistakes x_x 
> 
> Side note, there are NO Bruce Wayne/Guy Gardner fics and that is shocking to me. This website loves a dysfunctional ship.


	4. Chapter 4

After their confrontation on Hal’s front porch on Sunday night, Bruce and Hal officially started to ignore each other.

Ordinarily Bruce resisted the temptation to complain about one of his neighbors, but he couldn’t help but vent about Hal a little bit during his and Clark’s usual Thursday morning jog.

“There are still boxes all over the house. He’s lived here almost a week and he hasn’t bothered to unpack anything. He’s letting trashbags pile up on his back porch,” Bruce said. “Watch the whole neighborhood become infested with rats because Hal Jordan can’t be bothered to put out his trash bin.”

Bruce was only slightly winded by their speed. Clark, curse him, wasn’t winded at all.

“He doesn’t know how to recycle, and his only mode of transportation is that ridiculous motorcycle. My whole house rattles when he leaves for work in the morning.”

“You know, I always wanted a motorcycle when I was in college, but I couldn’t afford one,” Clark said. “If I was a single man and didn’t have a wife and two kids to worry about…”

Clark was the most responsible, level-headed person Bruce had ever met. He found it hard to believe Clark would ever have purchased a motorcycle, even if he did have the money. Instead of arguing about it, however, Bruce went back to listing his complaints about Hal.

“He’s irresponsible and childish, and his friends are just as terrible as him. He acts like a kid who’s just gone off to college for the first time and doesn’t have dad and mom breathing down his neck,” Bruce said.

“Good thing he has you breathing down his neck, then,” Clark said.

Bruce glared over at Clark, about to retort, but then a man sped past them, yelling out a “Morning!” as he passed. It was Barry.

“Morning Barry!” Clark called out to him.

Then Clark turned back to Bruce and said, “Ok, I will admit that was a low blow. Has he had another party since you talked to him on Sunday night?”

“No. It appears that I got my message across,” Bruce said.

“See, he’s not completely unreasonable then, right? There’s always a little bit of pain involved when someone new is settling into the neighborhood.” He nodded his head at Barry, who was already far up the street. “Remember when Barry and Iris first moved into old Jay’s house?”

Bruce did remember. Barry was a former Olympian. He'd just finished his final Olympic game the year he moved into the neighborhood, taking home a record number of gold medals for various track events. His presence in the neighborhood had attracted some sports enthusiasts for a little while, but eventually they got bored and moved on.

The situation with Hal was different. It was the overzealous fans camping out in the neighborhood hoping to get a glimpse of Barry who'd been the problem back when Barry moved in, not Barry himself. In Hal’s case, Hal was the problem. 

Bruce didn't know how else to explain it to Clark, however, so he said, “You’d understand if you talked to him.”

“I have talked to him,” Clark said.

There was a pause as Bruce absorbed this. 

“And what did you talk to him about?” Bruce asked. 

“Don’t sound so disapproving, Bruce,” Clark said. “I ran into him when I was out for a walk with Lois and Krypto. We chatted for a bit about how he’s settling into the neighborhood, and that was it.”

Bruce bristled internally, but said nothing.

“Don’t get all bent out of shape,” Clark said. “He didn’t say anything about you.”

Bruce snorted.

“Maybe he did mention that certain people in the neighborhood are a little warmer than others, but he never mentioned you by name.”

“I don’t care that he doesn’t like me,” Bruce said. “You know he had the nerve to compare mowing my lawn in the morning to him having a party on a school night?”

Clark chuckled and said, “Well, 6 a.m. is a little early to start mowing your lawn, Bruce.”

Bruce looked sharply at Clark.

Clark held up his hands and said, “I’m just saying. You know I don’t mind, but it’s not a crime to like to sleep in.”

Bruce shook his head and faced forward, focusing on the road and the run.

“You know what I think?” Clark asked.

Bruce grunted.

“I think that you should get out for a night,” Clark said.

Bruce frowned at him.

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re always cooped up in this neighborhood,” Clark said, gesturing at one of the houses as they passed it. “Watching your kids, cleaning your house, mowing your lawn. Don’t you think it’s a good idea for you to have a life beyond this block?”

Bruce glared at Clark, annoyed all over again.

“I have a life outside of the house. I volunteer, I’m PTA president at Damian’s school—”

“That’s not the kind of getting out I’m talking about, B. Those things are...chores, not hobbies. I’m talking about you having a social life.”

“What do you call what we’re doing right now?” Bruce asked.

“Are you being obtuse deliberately?” Clark asked him. “I’m talking about _dating_. Meeting a beautiful woman—or man—and forgetting about this neighborhood and the people who live here for a night.”

Bruce frowned.

“I have dated. People hear about the kids and it freaks them out. They try to pretend it doesn’t but then they inevitably run away. Remember Selina?”

Clark sighed.

“Selina didn’t run away from you or your kids. She ran away from the suburbs. You said it yourself that she was going crazy out here and needed to get back to the city.”

Bruce didn’t argue with this, mostly because he wanted to discontinue discussing his past romantic partners.

“There’s this new reporter at the paper,” Clark said.

Bruce nearly groaned, but managed to restrain himself. He felt he should’ve seen this coming. Clark did not know how to be subtle.

“Don’t say no right away. You’d like her, Bruce. She doesn’t take crap from anybody, even Lois,” Clark said. “I’ve mentioned you to her a couple of times and I think she’s interested.”

Bruce sighed, quiet enough so that Clark wouldn’t hear him. Clark was always trying to set Bruce up, as if Bruce’s problem was a hole in his life where a spouse should be. It was nice of him to want Bruce to be happy, but Bruce didn’t personally subscribe to the notion that marriage fixed everything. Clark had it perfect with Lois, was the problem. They were like America’s dream family, Clark and Lois and the boys.

But Bruce already had kids. Multiple kids. And he had Alfred, who would live with Bruce until he passed away of old age. Bruce couldn’t even promise anyone that Duke was the last kid he’d take in, because there were too many kids out there who needed a safe place to live. It wasn’t the kind of situation that most people wanted to get themselves mixed up in, and Bruce had accepted that a long time ago.

“Her name is Vivian,” Clark said, pushing through Bruce’s stony silence. “You’ve maybe read some of her articles in the paper. She’s a feminist, Bruce, the real kind who doesn’t hold onto tired beliefs about what kind of roles men need to take on in the home. I’ve discussed it with her before. That’s how you came up, actually. She’s fascinated by you.”

“Probably because she wants to interview me for an article,” Bruce said.

Clark ignored him.

“She thinks that it’s amazing that you’ve embraced the role of being a parent wholeheartedly. And not just a parent, but a foster parent as well.”

Bruce wished that Clark would stop talking.

“Look, I’m not going to twist your arm,” Clark said. “If you don’t want to go on a date with her then you don’t have to. I just don’t think it’s healthy that you’ve resigned yourself to a life of loneliness and solitude because you adopted a few kids.”

“I haven’t,” Bruce said.

“Are you sure about that?” Clark asked. “When was the last time you went on a date?”

Bruce thought about the question and found that he couldn’t remember, so he told Clark, “It’s none of your business.”

“That’s what I thought,” Clark said. "Think about it, ok?"

“I will,” Bruce lied. 

He could see Clark looking at him in his peripheral vision, but Bruce faced forward, focusing on the street. Maybe Clark could tell he was lying, but Bruce didn’t really care.

* * *

When he and Clark parted ways, Bruce had to hurry home so that he could shower and get the kids ready for school. It was easy to forget about all of the annoying things Clark had said about him and his nonexistent romantic life while he was busy helping Dick look for his phone and pulling Tim out of bed.

Unfortunately, as soon as the house was quiet and empty—completely empty that morning, since Alfred had a doctor’s appointment—the conversation with Clark came right back into his mind. His brain kept replaying the most annoying parts as he cleaned the upstairs bathroom, like CD that wouldn’t quit skipping.

He was so lost in thought that he almost didn’t notice his phone vibrating in the pocket of his jeans. He set down the brush he was using to scrub the tub and took off the rubber gloves before he hit the answer button, noticing as he did so that he didn’t recognize the number.

“Hello?” Bruce said.

“Hi, is this Jason’s dad, Mr. Wayne?” the caller asked.

It was a feminine voice, and unfortunately, familiar to Bruce. The caller was Dr. Quinn, one of the Assistant Principals at Jason and Dick’s school.

“Yes,” Bruce said. “Is Jason ok?”

“He was involved in a fight with another student this morning, Mr. Wayne. Principal Doe has requested that you come up to the school as soon as possible,” she said.

Barely ten minutes later, Bruce was walking through the door into the administrative office at the high school. He only had eyes for Jason. He had a bloody nose. There was no sign of any other student.

Bruce bypassed the administrative assistant completely and went right to his son.

“Jason!” he said. “What happened?”

Jason glanced between Principal Doe’s office and Bruce, his expression sullen.

“Principal Doe is waiting to speak to you, Mr. Wayne,” the assistant said.

Bruce reluctantly left Jason and went into Principal Doe’s office.

It was another thirty or forty minutes before Bruce and Jason left the school. According to the teacher who witnessed the incident, Jason lost his temper with another student in the hallway between classes, and there was a physical altercation. Jason had a been suspended for the rest of the week.

Bruce asked Principal Doe if this other student had been suspended as well—Jason’s nose hadn’t bloodied itself, obviously—but Principal Doe claimed that Jason’s injury was an accident, acquired as the other student attempted to fend Jason off. Of course, the other student, having been found blameless in all of this, wasn’t present in the office.

Bruce fumed all the way home, furious at both the principal and his ridiculous edgelord of a second son. Jason sat in the passenger seat with his head tipped back between the headrest and door, tilted so he could stare out the window.

They didn’t speak until they got back in the house. Jason made a beeline for the stairs and got halfway up to the mezzanine, but Bruce threw his keys down on the cabinet by the front door and said, “I don’t think so. Come back down here.”

Jason stopped, lingered, then turned and came back down the stairs, not looking Bruce in the eye.

“It’s September, Jason,” Bruce told him.

Jason still didn’t look at him.

“Last year you made it to March before you were suspended. I’ve resigned myself to the reality that you are who you are and sometimes you feel the irrepressible need to fight things, but you can usually hold off for a decent reason. And now I’m hearing that you’re attacking someone who didn’t even fight back? What the hell happened today?” Bruce said.

Jason still wasn’t meeting his eyes. He was staring at the floor, his hands tucked into the pockets of his jacket. It occurred to Bruce, belatedly, that Jason seemed a little different than after his usual fights. The other times Jason had been suspended, he’d driven all the way home with Bruce and Alfred ranting about the horrible things that had been said or done by the individual he’d fought and how they’d definitely deserved it.

This time he had nothing to say in his own defense.

“Who was it?” Bruce asked him. “The person who you fought.”

Jason didn’t answer the question right away.

Then, at last, came a low, “Connor Hawke.”

“Our neighbor Connor Hawke? Oliver’s son?”

“Yes,” Jason snapped. He finally met Bruce’s eyes. “Do you know another Connor Hawke?”

Bruce didn’t like the tone, but he was too distracted to address it at the moment.

“Jason, Connor volunteers with me and Alfred at the food kitchen. He walks shelter dogs after school and organized the Hurricane Edward relief last year. How in the hell did you get into a fight with him?”

“I don’t know,” Jason said. He ran a hand through his dark hair, pulling on the ends. “He was being annoying.”

Bruce considered Oliver’s intelligent, serene son, and couldn’t imagine a single thing he could have said or done to set Jason off. 

“You can’t fight people just because you think they’re annoying,” Bruce said.

“You ran off to fight the new neighbor like two days ago,” Jason said, gesturing towards Hal’s house.

Bruce was caught off guard for the second time that day. It took him a moment to recover.

“That's not the same thing. Hal and I had a disagreement. A _verbal_ disagreement. I didn’t punch him,” Bruce said.

“Yeah, well…” Jason trailed off, his argument left incomplete.

“You’re grounded,” Bruce said. “For two weeks. No movies, no going out. And no reading.”

Jason looked at him like he was insane.

“No reading?” Jason said. A sort of half-choked laugh escaped his throat. “Are you kidding right now?”

“I can’t exactly ground you from video games, can I?” Bruce asked. “You don’t watch movies, and you don’t like TV. You’re barely even on your phone, although I suppose I should take it just to be on the safe side.”

“So what am I supposed to do if I can’t read?”

“Maybe you could work on all that homework that got sent home with you. And you can finish cleaning the upstairs bathroom. There will be other chores for you to work on when Alfred gets back from his appointment.”

Jason made a face and said, “Tim and Dick are the ones who leave the bathroom all nasty, that’s not fair!”

“I don’t care what’s fair, Jason!” Bruce said, finally losing his temper. “Next time think before you punch one of the neighbors!”

Jason’s mouth snapped shut, and he turned without another word and began heading up the stairs.

“The bathroom, Jason!” Bruce called up after him.

“I heard you!” Jason yelled back.

So much for Bruce’s quiet day at home alone.

* * *

Bruce and Jason barely spoke at all through dinner. The other kids and Alfred were used to Bruce and Jason’s disagreements, so the frostiness between them didn’t faze anybody else in the slightest. Without having to speak a word, Bruce got to hear all about the latest assignment in Tim’s coding class, how baseball practice went for Cassandra and Duke, and about Dick’s upcoming date with Kory on Friday night. Damian was chatty too, but it was harder to figure out what Damian was talking about sometimes, as he tended to ramble in a mishmash of English and the several other languages he’d picked up from his mother as a toddler.

Bruce could tell the rest of the kids already knew about Jason’s suspension—gossip traveled between the kids like the flu—so Bruce didn’t have to worry about any insensitive questions that might set Jason off. The others simply acted as if Bruce and Jason weren’t there.

Bruce appreciated this, because he found he was more upset with Jason for fighting than usual.

After dinner, when the kids had all been dismissed to their rooms to finish up homework and get ready for bed, Bruce helped Alfred clean up the kitchen. Bruce washed the dishes and Alfred hummed as he dried them and put them away. For a while Bruce thought that they weren’t going to talk at all.

Then Alfred stopped humming and said, “Jason told me that you grounded him from reading.”

Bruce sighed.

When Bruce had no other response aside from the sigh, Alfred asked, “Is this true?”

“What else am I supposed to ground him from?” Bruce asked.

“His room is full of books,” Alfred said.

“I told him to keep his door open and work on his homework,” Bruce said.

“And his phone?”

“I have it locked up in my room.”

Alfred considered this. His expression didn’t shift by much, and he wasn’t saying anything, but Bruce had lived with Alfred for a long time and could sense Alfred’s faint disapproval over the situation regardless.

“I was thinking about Jason today and something occurred to me,” Alfred said.

Bruce remained silent, waiting for him to speak. He was trying to scrub some particularly stubborn grease stains off a baking sheet.

“I think that a night out would be good for you,” Alfred said.

Bruce stopped scrubbing and turned to look at Alfred over his shoulder. Alfred resumed humming, wiping down a saucepan with his dish towel.

When Alfred continued ignoring him, Bruce turned off the water and turned to face his adopted father, hands on his hips even though his rubber gloves were wet and soapy.

“What on earth does this have to do with Jason?” Bruce asked him.

“As of late you are as isolated as Jason. I do not think this is any healthier for you than it is for him,” Alfred said.

Bruce couldn’t believe this topic was coming up twice in one day. 

“I’m not isolated, Alfred,” Bruce told him.

“Is that so? Not counting me and the children, who do you talk to? Who do you consider to be your friends? When was the last time that you pursued an individual romantically?”

“Maybe I haven’t dated in a while, but I have friends. You know I went for a jog with Clark this morning.”

“Ah yes, going for a run with a man for whom you harbored unrequited feelings is the very pinnacle of emotional wellness. Well done, Bruce,” Alfred said.

Alfred went to put up the saucepan. Bruce stared at the back of Alfred’s head, struck dumb as Alfred resumed humming.

Bruce had never spoken about the feelings he’d harbored for Clark when the first met. Those feelings had been inappropriate—Clark was married, after all, and he had two kids. So Bruce had pretended he didn't feel the way he did.

But Alfred had always been able to read him better than anyone else. It shouldn’t have shocked him that Alfred knew, but he was shocked regardless.

“I don’t feel that way anymore,” Bruce told Alfred. “I may have...felt a particular way about Clark once. I have long since gotten over that. Now I think of him as a good friend.”

Alfred didn't comment on this. Instead he said, “I am more than happy to be in charge of the children for an evening every once in a while so that you can take someone out on a date. I have my evenings at the community theater, after all, so it is only fair. We all need time for ourselves.”

“Is this really what we’re talking about?” Bruce asked him. “Today? When Jason has just been suspended again?”

Alfred shot him a disapproving look.

“It is important, so yes, we are talking about it. A foster parent is not all that you are. Sometimes I think you forget that,” Alfred said.

Bruce pulled off his rubber gloves. He dropped them next to the sink, abandoning the baking sheet and the rest of the dishes as he made his way out of the kitchen.

“Where are you going?” Alfred asked.

“I’m going to check on Tim and make sure he’s doing his history homework,” Bruce said, and left to do just that.

Anything to get him out of there.

* * *

The kids all went to bed early that night, so Bruce too retreated to his bedroom. He considered spending the rare free time reading, but even glancing at his unfinished book reminded him of how he'd decided to punish Jason. So instead he sat on the edge of his bed, stuck in a pointless mental loop, irritated but not being able to do anything to distract himself from the irritation as the sunny evening faded into pitch black night.

Bruce was still staring at a blank section of his bedroom wall when he saw a light come on in his peripheral vision.

Bruce glanced through the window without really meaning to and saw that Hal Jordan was home. He’d come into his room and switched on the overhead light, which was what had caught Bruce’s attention.

He also wasn’t alone.

Bruce watched, stunned for a moment as Hal Jordan and a red-headed woman made uneven progress toward the bed. They couldn’t take their hands off each other; the woman tugged at Hal’s shirt, attempting to pull it over his head, but Hal had his arms wrapped around her and wasn’t letting go. Neither of them seemed to realize that Hal’s blinds were wide open.

The pair ran into the edge of the bed and they stumbled, shocked but laughing, onto the mattress. Finally letting go of each other, Hal said something before he sat up and pulled his shirt off.

Bruce’s brain must’ve disconnected from reality for a moment. It wasn’t anything he hadn’t seen last weekend—Hal Jordan, sans shirt—but now the context was different, and Bruce’s brain blanked on all decency. The shirt gone, Hal unzipped his jeans and shoved them down without ceremony, revealing muscled thighs and black and white boxer briefs.

It was only when the woman sat up and started undoing the buttons on her shirt that Bruce remembered he was watching something he had no business watching. He got up and went over to the window, keeping his gaze averted as he lowered the blinds and shut them.

This task completed, Bruce went back to the bed. He didn’t sit down.

Minutes escaped him. He was mad at himself for how much he'd gawked. Then he was annoyed with Hal, although he wasn't sure why. Who was the woman? Did she really like Hal? The man was annoying, but Bruce had eyes. Whoever she was, Bruce figured she might be willing to put up with Hal long enough to sleep with him. 

It really wasn't his business. 

At last Bruce shook his head and made himself head into his bathroom. A confused knot of emotions welled up in him as he got ready for bed, the day's strain of irritation eventually overpowering the rest.

He almost forgot to brush his teeth.

Then he was at last climbing into bed, and it was a mercy when sleep overtook him as fast as it did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This week has been a clusterfuck and I had to work today so this chapter is being posted kinda late, sorry T_T I'm also sorry that I haven't been responding to comments lately. Like I said, clusterfuck, but I am reading all the comments and I do appreciate them and will reply when I get the time!
> 
> Jason's punishment was inspired by my own childhood. I was once grounded from reading because my parents didn't know how else to punish me. It was not effective.


	5. Chapter 5

It was raining when Bruce’s alarm woke him the next morning. He woke on his stomach, face pressed into his pillow so that he could barely breathe.

Grunting, Bruce rolled off the bed. Most mornings he got up and went for a run, rain or shine, but for some reason he didn’t feel up to it. Instead he pulled off his pajamas and got into the shower. 

The water pressure in Bruce’s shower had always been low. Most of the time he barely noticed it, but that morning the weak trickle of water from the shower head did nothing to help his mood. By the time all the soap had washed off, Bruce was freezing and annoyed.

He got out of the shower and patted himself dry with the towel, washing his teeth and dressing for the day without any enthusiasm. He had the most peculiar desire to get back into bed. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d wanted to hide from the day.

Alfred and some of the kids were already up by the time Bruce got downstairs. Dick was digging through the hall closet looking for his rain boots. Damian and Duke were in the kitchen trying to train Ace to do tricks by tempting him with cheese. Even Tim was already up, though by the way he was listing forward there was a good chance he was about to fall asleep in his cornflakes. Cassandra was sitting next to him with her cell phone out on the table, watching a video.

Only Jason was missing that morning. Bruce assumed he was sulking upstairs in his room. He’d probably stay up there all day if Bruce let him. 

Bruce went over to the stove, where Alfred was making hash browns. Alfred glanced over at him as he approached.

“You didn’t go out running?” Alfred asked, surprised.

Bruce grunted and headed for the refrigerator, pulling out a nearly-empty bottle of orange juice.

Alfred, as usual, seemed unperturbed by Bruce’s mood. He transferred some hash browns onto a plate and said, “Last night I compiled a list of tasks for Jason to work on today. I was going to have him help me paint the shed first, but, well.” Alfred nodded toward the windows over the kitchen sink, where heavy rain was lashing against the window. “Alas, the shed will have to wait. I thought he could help me clean out the garage today instead.”

Bruce felt a spike of alarm.

“The garage? Why are you going through the garage?” Bruce asked him. 

“Honestly, Bruce,” Alfred said. “I do not know where you get your tendencies to hoard. You certainly did not get them from me.” 

Bruce frowned at the back of Alfred’s grey head. Aside from his bedroom, the garage was the only place left in the house where the kids hadn’t completely taken over.

He also kept his car in the garage. Not the SUV that he used to take the kids to school and practices and et cetera, but the _other_ car. A 1955 Lincoln Futura Bruce bought when he was 25 and stupid. It didn’t even drive, but Bruce liked working on it when he got the chance. Lately, those chances were few and far between. 

“Don’t worry,” Alfred said, seeming to read his mind. “I promise I’ll check with you first before Jason and I haul anything off to be donated.” 

Bruce pretended not to hear this. Instead he finished off the rest of the orange juice, then went to stop Duke and Damian from giving Ace more cheese.

* * *

Although he knew it was irrational, Bruce found himself getting paranoid about the garage decluttering project as the day went on. It stopped raining sometime around 11 in the morning, and as the pavement dried Jason and Alfred began pulling boxes out of the garage and making piles of shoes and sporting equipment and tools on the driveway. They hadn’t made it over to the side of the garage where Bruce’s car was parked yet, but they’d make it there sooner or later. Alfred he trusted to be careful, but Jason, like any of his kids, could get distracted or carried away and run into things. Bruce was regretting skipping his morning run.

Eventually, however, he did grow tired of worrying about his car, so he decided to distract himself with a different organization project: cleaning out the refrigerator. It was a long, laborious, and sometimes disgusting task, and he’d put it off for way longer than he should have.

He’d only gotten through the jams and condiments when there was a loud crack in the backyard.

Ace—who’d been deep in a nap on the rug by the stove—jerked awake and got up at once. He was growling already as he slipped across the kitchen tile to the back door, and once there he began to bark in earnest. Bruce lowered the jar of olives he’d been inspecting and put it back in its place on the shelf. Then he shut the refrigerator and walked over to look out the sliding back door as well.

Hal Jordan was in his backyard.

The source of the crash was no doubt the gate, which had somehow fallen over into Bruce’s yard. Hal Jordan was in the process of picking it back up, though what he planned to do with it once he’d gotten it upright was a mystery to Bruce.

Frowning already, Bruce opened the back door. Ace slipped out ahead of him and made a beeline for Hal, leaping down the patio steps.

All the barking got Hal’s attention and he looked up sharply, but didn’t appear to be concerned about the huge German shepherd barreling toward him. Instead of tackling Hal to the ground, however, Ace approached cautiously and continued to growl.

“Nice dog,” Hal Jordan said.

Bruce whistled sharply. At once Ace backed off and walked back over to Bruce’s side. Ace sat down, still as a statue, and watched Hal. With his dog at his side, Bruce crossed his arms over his chest and he too stared at Hal.

“So,” Hal said. He scratched the back of his head. “There is an explanation for this.”

Bruce said nothing and just kept staring at him.

“I was just walking around the backyard—my backyard—trying to get the lay of the land, and I was looking at the fence and I noticed the gate seemed to be in bad shape. And when I tried to open it I guess the hinges gave out and it, uh, fell over,” Hal said.

Bruce had no reason to disbelieve him. Honestly, it was a miracle that the gate had held up for as long as it had.

It was also something of a miracle that this conversation was dropping into Bruce’s lap. Alfred had wanted him to wait three months before bringing up the fence, but he couldn’t be upset with Bruce if the subject had come up without Bruce’s maneuvering.

“I might have some hinges that I can use on the gate temporarily, but the wood isn’t going to last that much longer. This section of the fence is quite old,” Bruce explained to Hal. “It will have to be replaced soon.”

“Right,” Hal said, frowning. He glanced over his shoulder at the fence.

While he was distracted, Bruce glanced through the now open gateway and stole a glimpse at Hal’s backyard. He was able to see into the backyard next door from some of the upstairs windows in his house, of course, but that was different from seeing it up close. There was a pool next door, but the water was low and had turned a murky green color. The grass had been allowed to become overgrown, then hadn’t survived the dry summer. What few shrubs and bushes there were in the yard had become overgrown and tangled. Hal had his work cut out for him.

“Maybe we could prop the gate up for now. Or maybe we could turn it over. It would be short but it might work as a barrier between our two yards,” Hal said, but he eyed Ace, probably thinking the same thing Bruce was thinking: none of that would keep Ace out.

“Are there any other sections of your fence that are open?” Bruce asked.

“I don’t think so,” Hal said, and shook his head.

“As long as Ace can’t get out of your yard, he shouldn’t cause any trouble,” Bruce said. “I can pick up some chicken wire or something later to use as a temporary barrier. It’s not a long term solution, but if we’re going to be replacing this section of the fence soon anyway…”

Hal’s eyes narrowed slightly, but Bruce couldn’t guess what he was thinking. It was almost like Hal’s face was _too_ expressive. One minute he was grinning, the next he was frowning, his eyebrows moved, his cheeks dimpled, his eyes rolled and sparkled. No matter how much time Bruce spent looking at him, he had no clue what was going on in Hal’s head.

Bruce finally gave up trying to figure him out and said, “Alan’s house was vacant for so long. For a while there I was starting to think that I would have to cover the cost of the new fence alone.”

There was a pause, and then Hal said, “Yeah, that would be annoying.”

Bruce pressed on, encouraged by this.

“The gate could go, of course, when we replace the fence. We never used it, when Alan lived here,” he said. He didn’t say that he didn’t see a new gate getting a lot of use—he didn’t think he needed to.

“Right,” Hal said.

“Building a new gate would be an unnecessary additional expense anyway.”

“Right,” Hal said again.

Having apparently run out of things to contribute to the discussion, Hal moved around the gate. As he bent down to pick it back up, the back of Hal’s shirt ran up, revealing the lithe musculature and subtle curves of his hips and lower back.

Bruce felt his skin go hot, and was immediately horrified by his own physical reaction. He didn’t even _like_ this man.

Oblivious, Hal propped up the broken gate against the rest of the fence. The old wood moaned under the weight of it, and seemed to bow ominously into Hal’s yard, but did not come down. Hal watched the fence for a moment as if he thought it might, then stepped away as soon as it seemed as if all was well.

All was not well. Bruce wanted the fence replaced and the gate removed as soon as possible, but he knew he’d reached his cap for how much he could bully the new neighbor in a single day.

“Well,” Hal said, turning back to him. He put his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “I’m sure we’ll talk more. About the fence.”

“Soon,” Bruce said.

“Right. Soon,” Hal said.

Hal nodded his head and headed back into his yard. Ace whined as he left, but didn’t leave Bruce’s side.

Bruce turned around and went back into the house, whistling sharply again so that Ace would follow. 

* * *

Alfred and Jason finally took a break from cleaning out the garage around 1:30. Since Bruce had already planted himself in the kitchen for most of the day, he took care of making their meal. He didn’t make anything special—just some roasted potatoes and chicken—but Jason ate like a man long-starved of sustenance.

“How’s the project going?” he asked Alfred, hoping to distract himself from how Jason was chewing with his mouth open. 

“It’s all taking a bit longer than expected, but I am not displeased by our progress,” Alfred told him.

“Find anything interesting yet?” Bruce asked. 

“Mostly forgotten toys, I’m afraid, although Jason was delighted to be reunited with his DS. And there was a stash of photographs which I believe can only belong to Timothy.”

Jason rolled his eyes at the mention of Tim. Bruce decided to ignore this and asked, “Photographs? What kind of photographs?” 

“Polaroids of us and the other children. School moments, candids from their sporting events and other activities.”

“Creep,” Jason muttered.

“Don’t call Tim names when he’s not here to defend himself,” Bruce told Jason.

“I’d be happy to insult him to his face,” Jason replied, grinning with a mouth full of food.

Bruce shook his head. He liked to tell himself that Tim and Jason cared about each other deep down, but this was easier to believe some days than others.

“The photographs are quite good,” Alfred said. “It is a shame he hasn’t shared them with the family.”

“I would like to see the pictures,” Bruce said.

“I convinced Jason to put them back where he found them. I am sure Timothy will share them when he is ready.”

Bruce shrugged. Maybe he’d poke around in there one day while he was working on the car and take a look for himself.

He was still thinking about the pictures when Alfred asked, “And how is our new neighbor doing?”

Bruce shot Alfred a puzzled look.

“There’s no need for a masquerade. There is nothing wrong with my hearing, Bruce. I heard it too when Mr. Jordan knocked the gate down. I was coming to see what all of the commotion was about, but then I saw you were already speaking to him. I thought it best not to interrupt,” Alfred said.

“Hal Jordan is fine,” Bruce said.

“That’s good to hear. I certainly hope you were on your best behavior.”

Irritation stirred in Bruce’s gut.

“Yes, I was. We were both civil,” Bruce said. Then he added, deceptively mild, “We chatted about the fence, actually.”

Alfred paused, his fork halfway to his mouth. He lowered the utensil as he said, “You didn’t.”

“I wasn’t the one who brought it up. He was in his backyard poking around and when he tried to get the gate open, it fell down. I merely mentioned that the whole section would have to be replaced eventually.”

The more Bruce thought about it, the more pleased he was about the whole conversation. The issue of the fence had been brought up and he’d made it perfectly clear what his expectations for Hal were. And they were going to get rid of that damn gate. It almost made him feel like smiling.

“You know, sometimes you do come on a bit strong,” Alfred said.

Bruce’s desire to smile disappeared. He lowered his fork as he stared at Alfred, brow furrowed. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Bruce asked. 

Alfred, however, apparently did not feel like explaining himself. He set his fork and knife down on his plate and pushed his chair away from the table, saying, “I’ll make some tea and then Jason and I can get back to work.”

“Alfred,” Bruce said, but Alfred ignored him and went right to the kettle. 

“Dad?” Jason said.

Bruce stopped glaring at the back of Alfred’s head and turned to his son. 

“Yes, Jason?”

“Can I help you with the car?” Jason asked. 

Bruce cocked his head.

“The SUV?”

Jason rolled his eyes and said, “No. The other car. The Futura.”

The _duh_ was implied by Jason’s tone.

“Oh,” Bruce said.

He was filled suddenly with a complex emotion. It wasn’t concern necessarily, although he was confused as to why Jason was suddenly taking an interest in his old car.

“You know it doesn’t drive,” Bruce reminded him.

“Yeah, I know,” Jason said, rolling his eyes again. “That’s why you’re working on it. So it will drive one day?” 

Bruce nodded.

“So can I help or not?” Jason asked. 

Bruce thought about it for a moment, and didn’t see the harm.

“Well...sure, if you want. But don’t work on it without my supervision. I wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”

Jason shrugged and said, “Fine. Are there more potatoes?” 

“In the refrigerator,” Bruce said.

Jason got up to fetch them.

While he was busy, Bruce glanced over to the stove where Alfred was standing, and found that Alfred was already looking at him. He smiled a small smile at Bruce, and then he turned back to his tea.

* * *

Bruce jolted into awareness in the middle of the night, feeling as if he’d gone from asleep to alert in a single instant. He opened his eyes to his dark bedroom. Except for a little bit of light streaming in through the closed blinds and the glow of his alarm clock across the room, there was almost nothing to see.

Bruce never went right back to sleep when he woke up in the middle of the night. With six kids in the house—three of them teenagers—he’d learned how to sleep without fans or noise machines for a reason.

Bruce had to lay there for a moment, listening, before he finally heard what had woken him up. There were voices coming from somewhere nearby. Outside, he realized. As he kept listening, someone laughed. It was a woman’s laugh, high enough to echo between his house and Hal’s. It was a wonder he hadn’t woken sooner.

Bruce looked at the alarm clock. The time was 1:37 a.m. Sighing, Bruce got out of bed and pulled a bathrobe on before he left his room.

He was careful not to step on the creaky floorboards as he made his way down the hall, since he didn’t want to wake any of the kids. Jason’s bedroom door was shut, but Tim and Duke’s was open. He looked in and saw both boys were fast asleep. Tim was buried under a pile of blankets on his bed, and Bruce could only tell he was there because one arm was sticking out from the pile. Duke was asleep on his back with his mouth open; he’d kicked his blankets off and Ace was stretched out on the twin mattress next to him.

Bruce kept going, so quiet that even the dog didn’t stir. Damian’s bedroom door was open too. Damian was curled into a ball on his side, the cat asleep on his feet. Still he went on.

Bruce went downstairs and made silent progress through the house. When he got to the back door, he unlocked and opened it slowly, careful not to let it creak too much. When there was just enough room for him to get through, Bruce stepped out onto the patio and pulled the door shut behind him.

The early morning was chilly, and Bruce pulled his bathrobe tighter, regretting not stopping for a shirt too before he’d left his room. It was brighter outside than in the house, thanks to a full moon and patio lights next door. Bruce walked down the steps and over to the gate, which was, of course, wide open.

Bruce stepped into the open gateway, not leaving his yard, but positioning himself on the path so that the people gathered in the yard next door would be able to see him. He crossed his arms over his chest and looked for Hal. There were more people than Bruce was expecting—about ten of them, he counted quickly—and they were sitting around a hastily built firepit in the middle of the weedy dead yard.

Someone must’ve spotted him, because he heard a voice say, “Christ, here we go.” Bruce thought the voice might belong to Hal’s other friend from last weekend, the black man with the short hair, but he wasn’t sure.

“Fuck me,” someone else said, and Bruce knew without a doubt that that had come from the redhead.

One of the figures around the fire pit stood and detached from the crowd. As the figure neared, Bruce recognized Hal’s bomber jacket. It wasn’t until Hal was standing on the other side of the open gateway, however, that Bruce could see his face.

“Bruce! What can I do to help you?” Hal asked.

Bruce said nothing, eyeing the group gathered around the fire pit. He could see some heads turning in their direction, whispering with lowered voices. Others either didn’t know what was going on or didn’t care and kept talking amongst themselves.

“Look, I know what you’re going to say,” Hal said. Bruce pulled his gaze away from the crowd and looked Hal in the eye. “Before you say it, I want to point out that it’s not a school night. We’re not making that much noise and there’s no music.”

“It’s almost 2 in the morning,” Bruce said.

“No it’s not,” Hal said.

Bruce waited as Hal pulled his phone out of his back pocket and checked the time.

“Ok, or maybe it is,” Hal said.

Bruce didn’t say anything.

“So what happened, did we wake one of the kids up or something?” Hal asked.

“Not yet,” Bruce said.

“Here’s an idea,” Hal said.

Hal stepped over the imaginary barrier into Bruce’s yard. He angled himself so that he had his back to his friends, as if he was trying to keep them from hearing their conversation.

“What if you didn’t call the cops tonight?” Hal asked. 

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t,” Bruce said.

Hal groaned and said, “Come on, Bruce. Do you hate fun on principle or something? We’ll be wrapping this up soon, I swear. I’m just having a few people over for drinks after a long work day. That’s it.”

Bruce simply stared at him for a moment. Hal didn’t say anything either, and since the man seemed to love the sound of his own voice, Bruce thought was an amazing show of self-restraint.

“As president of the HOA, I feel it is necessary to warn you that you’re on thin ice,” Bruce told him.

“President of the what now?” Hal asked.

“The HOA. The homeowner’s association,” Bruce said. “If your uncle has legally given you this house, that means you too are a member of the HOA. That means you agree to follow the rules we have developed in order to maintain the high quality of living in this neighborhood.”

Bruce’s eyes had adjusted to the dim light and he could see that Hal was confused.

“I’m sorry, I don’t get it. Did this homeowner’s thing say no to parties?” Hal asked.

“So long as they don’t disturb anyone, it’s fine to throw a party. But your parties are loud and a nuisance that is disruptive to everyone.”

“Everyone, sure,” Hal said, doubtful. “Whatever you say, Mr. President.”

Behind Hal, Bruce saw another figure get up and detach from the crowd around the fire pit.

“You’re welcome to attend the next meeting and ask around for yourself,” Bruce said.

Hal snorted.

Bruce was about to say something else when the approaching figure got close enough that Bruce could see who it was.

It was Barry. As in, Barry Allen, from the house across the street. He was holding a beer.

“Hey Bruce,” Barry said, waving at him. “What’s going on?”

Bruce stared at Barry, momentarily at a loss for words.

“What are you doing here?” Bruce finally asked him.

“At Hal’s house?” Barry asked. “Uh, meeting people?”

He sounded unsure, and Bruce glared at him. He turned away from Barry and transferred his glare to Hal.

“We can speak more about this later,” Bruce told him.

Without another word, Bruce turned and headed for the house.

“What was that about?” Barry whispered, not quiet enough so that Bruce couldn’t hear it.

“Don’t worry about it,” Hal said, and Bruce heard them walk away.

The last thing Bruce heard before he shut the door was Hal’s terrible redheaded friend asking, “Where’d the asshole go?”

Bruce locked the back door and went back to bed.


	6. Chapter 6

Bruce was browsing the selection of spices when Dick returned with the shopping cart. 

“Absolutely not, put them all back,” Bruce told him, taking in the pile of cereal boxes.

“What? Why?” Dick said, frowning.

“Why do you think?” Bruce said. He picked up the nearest box—a blue, white, and brown box of Cookie Crisp.

“I get a lot of exercise!” Dick said. “I need the calories.”

Bruce dropped the Cookie Crisp and picked up the jumbo-size box of Lucky Charms, saying, “Alfred would kill me if I let you get all of this.” 

“Alfred’s not the one in charge,” Dick said.

“Don’t even try to act like that’s true. Put it all back.”

Dick looked longingly down at the shopping cart and asked, “Can’t I keep at least one?”

“Fine. But only one, and not one of these huge boxes. You can get one normal sized box of sugary cereal. The rest you have to put back on the shelf where they belong. Don’t leave them somewhere and create extra work for a clerk who makes eight dollars an hour.”

Dick frowned and went back to the handles of the cart. He stared into the cart with a stricken expression on his face as he pushed it away, like Bruce had asked him to pick a favorite sibling rather than a favorite cereal.

When he turned the corner disappeared behind an aisle, Bruce shook his head and turned back the numerous canisters of spices. Bruce was picking up ingredients for Alfred, who usually did the grocery shopping himself. An old friend from his theater days had come into town, however, so Bruce was doing the shopping for him for a change. Bringing the kids with him might have been a mistake.

He’d finally tracked down tandoori powder when he heard a woman’s voice say, “Bruce, is that you?”

Bruce looked up and turned his head in the direction of the voice, which had come from further down the aisle.

It was Diana. She was already making her way toward him, beaming. A stunned man stared up at her as she passed, both intimidated and entranced. Diana didn’t notice the man at all.

“I thought that was you!” Diana said as she reached him. “What a wonderful coincidence.” 

“Morning Diana,” he said. 

Diana, like Clark, lived in one of the houses at the end of the street with her two nieces, Cassie and Donna. Her house was on the opposite side of the neighborhood from Clark’s, however, and this arrangement had always put Bruce oddly at ease. Out of all of the neighbors, Diana and Clark were the ones he liked and trusted the most. It was comforting to know that any stranger who wandered through their little stretch of the world would have to go through Diana and Clark to get in or out.

“What a wonderful coincidence! I was just thinking about you this morning,” Diana said.

Bruce frowned up at her and said, “You were?”

“Yes! You never responded to my invitation to the barbecue,” she said. 

“Barbecue?”

Diana frowned back at him and said, “I invited you on Facebook a couple of weeks ago.”

Come to think of it, he did vaguely recall getting an invitation to a barbecue—an invitation he’d left in limbo, intending to never respond, which was what he did with most of the invitations to social events he received.

“Oh, uh,” Bruce said. He fumbled around for an excuse, but one didn’t come to mind. It was hard to make up excuses to somebody who lived at the end of his block.

“You’re coming,” Diana said, smiling at him as she grabbed his arm. She had a firm grip. “Everyone is going to be there and we’d all love to see you.”

Inwardly, Bruce’s mood soured, though he did his best to not let his displeasure show. HOA meetings with the rest of the neighborhood he could handle—those were about business. But every time he went to a social event, he found himself rambling to some poor trapped soul about his kids, telling stories about Dick’s meets or Damian’s tendency to bring wild animals into the house. Then he’d have to make excuses to go somewhere else so the person who’d gotten stuck listening to him would be free to carry on with their life, and...Bruce really preferred not to go to social events.

“Ms. Prince?” 

Diana turned away from Bruce, revealing Jason. He’d finally returned with the peanut butter Bruce had asked him to go get over twenty minutes ago, and as per usual when Jason ran into Diana, he was gazing up at her with worshipful devotion.

“Hello Jason!” Diana said, beaming at Bruce’s son. “How have you been?”

“I’m good, good, how are you?” Jason asked.

“I’m doing splendidly. I was just trying to talk your father into bringing you and the rest of your family to my barbecue tonight.” 

“Barbecue?” Jason said, glancing over at Bruce.

“Of course, we’ll be there,” Bruce cut in before Diana could say anything else.

“That’s great!” Diana said. “I would love to stick around and chat, but I’ve got a lot to do to get ready for tonight. I’ll see you both later!”

Diana turned and left, ruffling Jason’s hair as she went. Instead of looking annoyed—which was how he would look if literally anyone else had ruffled his hair—Jason gazed after her as if she’d hung the moon and stars in the sky.

“We are going right?” Jason asked, finally turning back to Bruce.

“I said we would.” 

“Cool,” Jason said.

Jason dumped the jar of peanut butter into Bruce’s basket on his way past him.

“Where are you going?” Bruce asked, watching him leave.

Jason stopped, swiveling on the tile floor. “Alfred told me to get tea.” 

“Fine, but while you’re doing that you should get some drinks or something to bring to Diana’s barbecue. It would be rude to show up empty-handed.” 

Jason rolled his eyes and said, “Fine,” as he turned again to go.

Bruce watched him leave, irritated for a variety of reasons. He wasn’t happy about the unexpected social event, but maybe it wasn't a total loss. It would be a good opportunity to find out what the other neighbors thought about Hal, after all. And, he supposed, the kids would be happy to go.

Shaking his head, Bruce turned back to the tandoori powder.

* * *

Diana’s house and garden were breathtaking, as per usual. Diana’s garden rivaled Alfred’s, though there was very little about the two gardens that were similar. Alfred’s garden resembled a wild English garden, while Diana’s was like visiting an island.

The garden was excellent; the presence of all of the people was not.

Bruce nodded at a few people who waved at him, but didn’t immediately approach anyone.

The rest of the family didn’t possess quite his level of natural introversion; Alfred was immediately pulled into a conversation with Arthur and Mera, and the kids spotted their friends and ran off. Only Jason was left standing next to Bruce with his hands in the pockets of his jacket, scuffing his ratty shoes on the ground as he eyed Dick and his friends.

“He wouldn’t mind if you went over there to talk to them,” Bruce told him. 

Jason looked away from Dick’s crowd, glowering already as he turned to Bruce and said, “What?”

“Dick and his friends. You could go talk to them,” Bruce said. 

“I don’t want to talk to them,” Jason lied.

Sighing, Bruce spotted the drinks table and said, “Let’s go get something to drink, ok?”

Bruce half expected Jason to roll his eyes and walk away. He was kind of amazed when Jason followed him over to the drinks and accepted a can of soda. He was even more amazed when Jason continued to shadow him around the party, sticking by his side through the small clusters of neighbors chatting in Diana’s backyard.

They didn’t speak, however, until Bruce spotted Oliver Queen and his wife Dinah standing across the yard, closer to the pool. Connor was with them, and Bruce felt a pang when he saw that Connor had a busted lip.

Belatedly—far too belatedly—it occurred to Bruce that he’d never instructed Jason to apologize.

“Were you planning on apologizing to Connor Hawke?” Bruce asked Jason.

Jason looked up at him, frowning, and said, “Huh?” 

“Connor. The kid you punched,” Bruce said, gesturing to where Connor was standing with his parents. “Were you planning on apologizing?”

Jason looked over at Connor and his parents, his freckled skin taking on a slight rosy color. He was clearly furious when he turned back to Bruce, and said, “I’m not going to apologize now in front of all of these people!”

“I’m not saying you have to. I just want you to apologize at some point,” Bruce said, shrugging. 

Without another word, Jason turned and left, disappearing into the crowd of people in Diana’s backyard.

Shaking his head, Bruce was turning to go talk to Dinah and Ollie when he happened to glance through a break in the crowd and spot Clark, who was smiling as he talked to a shorter man with tousled brown hair.

The man's back was turned, but there was no mistaking him. He was wearing faded jeans and a brown bomber jacket.

He could only be _Hal Jordan_.

Bruce stopped and stared in numb shock. He didn’t know which was harder to believe: that Diana would invite Hal Jordan to her party in the first place, or that Clark would be laughing and talking with the awful man.

He stared at them, forgetting his original errand entirely. In fact, he forgot about the party, about Jason, about anything at all except _Clark talking to Hal_. He knew it was childish to feel so betrayed, but Clark knew how he felt about Hal. Hadn’t Clark heard anything Bruce said about him?

When he’d returned to himself, Bruce looked down at his cup of water, dissatisfied with it and the turn the party had taken. If Hal Jordan was here, he was going to need a much stronger drink. 

He was just turning to go get a beer when he found himself being waylaid by Oliver and Dinah.

“Bruce!” Oliver said. “I didn’t expect you to come. You always find a way to slither out of the social events, don’t you?”

It took Bruce a moment to respond, as his mind was still preoccupied with the Clark and Hal situation happening behind him. Finally, however, he managed to smile at Oliver—it wasn’t a very warm smile by any stretch of the imagination, but it was still a smile. 

“Oliver,” Bruce said, then looked to Dinah and nodded. “Hello Dinah.” 

“Hello Bruce,” Dinah said, and went to kiss him on the cheek. Bruce bent a little so she wouldn’t have to reach to do so.

“I feel like I don’t see you much lately. How are you? And how are all of the kids?” Oliver asked. 

Connor, Bruce noticed, was no longer with his parents. Bruce wondered where he’d gone and hoped that he and Jason managed to steer clear of each other, for everyone’s sake.

“The kids are doing well, thank you,” Bruce told them. “And what about yours?”

“Same as usual,” Oliver said, shrugging easily. “Lots of complaining from Roy, not very much complaining from Connor. Both of them still eating us out of house and home. The other night I came downstairs around 4 a.m. because I heard a noise and I caught Roy in the kitchen making a hamburger. I asked him what the hell he was doing and he said, ‘I’m hungry.’ Like making a hamburger at the ass crack of dawn is a totally normal thing to do.”

Dinah smiled.

Bruce did not. It was odd that Oliver was talking to him like nothing was wrong. Bruce didn’t know that he would be able to do the same, if it had been one of Oliver’s sons who had punched one of Bruce’s children for no reason.

“Oliver, Dinah, I’m very sorry about Jason. He’s not getting off the hook about it, I promise,” Bruce said. 

Dinah nodded, but Oliver just laughed.

“Don’t worry about it. Connor isn’t angry. You know how kids are, all of the raging hormones,” Oliver said.

Connor was basically a monk in training, Bruce thought. Of course he forgave Jason, even if Jason didn’t deserve it. 

“Jason will be apologizing to Connor of course,” Bruce said.

Oliver opened his mouth to say something, but Dinah put her hand over his mouth before he could speak. She said, “I’m sure Connor would appreciate the apology.”

Bruce nodded at her, and she deftly changed the subject.

* * *

Before Bruce knew it, more than an hour had passed. He was still talking to Ollie and Dinah, and a small crowd had gathered around them to listen to Dinah’s stories about her band’s latest tour.

Bruce would’ve liked to be able to say that he forgot about Hal Jordan’s presence while Dinah was telling her stories, but this wasn’t the case. It was as if everywhere Bruce looked, there Hal was in the corner of his eye.

Clark finally moved on to talk to somebody else, and then Hal was joined by Barry. Still later, Barry and Hal were joined by Diana. Barry left, and Hal flirted with Diana for a while. Diana seemed amused by the attention, but was clearly disinterested. Ted Kord and Michael Carter introduced themselves to Hal when Diana at last escaped, and Bruce almost rolled his eyes. Now there was an obnoxious trio.

Bruce’s agitation only grew as the evening went on. Even while they ate, Bruce didn’t get a break from the man. Hal sat at a table near the one where Bruce was sitting with Mera, Arthur, Kendra, and Ray. While Bruce did his best to pay attention to what the occupants of his table were discussing, Hal talked just loud enough so that Bruce had to overhear all of his inane stories about the company he worked for, Ferris Air.

After dinner, Bruce finally escaped to a camp chair on the far side of the yard. The youngest children, Damian included, were playing over in that part of the yard next to a huge tree and its old tire swing. Damian was ignoring the swing in favor of Diana’s huge orange tabby, which he had coaxed onto his lap.

He had been watching the smallest kids for a while when behind him, Bruce heard feet crunching on the grass.

“There you are.”

Bruce looked over his shoulder and up at Clark’s face.

“Hello Clark,” Bruce said.

Clark smiled.

“I’ve barely seen you all night. You haven’t been hiding from me, I hope.” 

“Why would I be hiding from you?” Bruce asked him.

Clark opened his mouth to say something, but seemed to think better of it. Instead he glanced around at all of the children, smiling warmly when he saw his youngest, Jon. Jon, a toddler still, was sitting a couple of feet away from Damian, staring with wonder at the huge cat.

“I’ve been hoping to talk to you all night,” Clark said.

“Oh?” Bruce said, thinking about the amount of time Clark had wasted with Hal. “What about?”

Clark sighed and sat down in the empty camp chair next to him. Once seated, he said, “I knew you were going to be this way.”

“I beg your pardon?” Bruce said, looking at him, one eyebrow raised.

Clark checked around them, as if looking for anybody who might be eavesdropping. Except for the children, however, there was nobody close enough to hear what they were talking about.

“This is about Hal Jordan, isn’t it?” Clark asked.

Bruce frowned and said, “What is about Hal Jordan?”

“Come on, Bruce,” Clark said. “You don’t like him. It’s fine. But that doesn’t mean we _all_ have to dislike him.”

Bruce knew he shouldn’t take the bait, but he couldn’t help it. 

“Maybe you’d feel differently if he was _your_ next door neighbor,” he told Clark.

“I think you should spend some time talking to him,” Clark said. “Actually talking to him, I mean, not berating him for Alan’s neglect.”

Bruce had been turning back to the children at that, but his head snapped back over to Clark when the words sank in.

“Did he say that I blame him for Alan neglecting his house?” Bruce asked.

“No. He didn’t have to. I know you, Bruce,” Clark said.

Bruce turned away from Clark and glared at the trees beyond Diana’s fence.

“To be honest with you, I’m kind of mystified by the entire situation,” Clark went on. “You’ve reacted poorly to new neighbors before, but I’ve never seen you come down on somebody this hard. Is there something else going on that you want to tell me about?”

Bruce snorted, but otherwise ignored the question. He felt oddly queasy, though, which was strange. What did Clark mean by something else? What else could be going on?

“Fine, don’t talk to me,” Clark said. “Blindly loathe Hal Jordan if that’s what you want, you don’t have to explain yourself to me. But I do hope, for the neighborhood’s sake, you and Hal find some common ground.”

Bruce opened his mouth to say something scathing in reply, but then the cat yowled and a roar of rage from Damian stopped him. Bruce looked back to the children just in time to watch Damian shove Jon, knocking him over on the grass. The cat was darting away, vanishing into the bushes as Jon burst into tears on the ground.

“Damian, no!” Bruce said, scrambling up.

Damian was also getting up, and Bruce could see the fury on his face as he headed toward Jon. Fortunately, Clark and Bruce were fast enough to get to them before Damian had a chance to do anymore damage.

Damian thrashed in Bruce’s arms, grumbling, "He pulled her tail! She's hurt and it's his fault!"

“He’s a baby, Damian, he didn’t know any better. She’ll be alright,” Bruce told him.

Damian just thrashed even harder. 

Jon had fistfuls of Clark’s shirt in his hands and was bawling into his neck as Clark held him, whispering soothing words and patting him on the back.

“Sorry, Clark,” Bruce said, and he turned to take Damian inside. He saw that they’d gained an audience. The neighbors who’d been socializing nearby were all watching, concern on their faces.

“Jon and Damian are fine, everyone, don’t worry,” Clark said.

Bruce said nothing, ignoring the curious eyes of the other party-goers as he carried his furious son into Diana’s house.

* * *

They didn’t leave the party early, though Bruce wanted to. Damian got over the issue with the cat, and Jon, happy kid that he was, was easily placated with a popsicle. Anyway, the other kids were having a good time, and Bruce didn’t want to ruin their evening by announcing that they were all leaving early.

As the evening went on, however, the sky grew cloudy and dark, the scent of the air threatening a rainstorm. Everyone started to collect their children, which for Bruce and Alfred was no small chore. Dick had apparently left early to go play video games at Wally’s house, and Tim, Cassandra, and Duke had gone with Kon and Bart to go watch a movie up in Cassie’s bedroom. 

Jason was the last kid Bruce went searching for, assuming he would be the easiest to locate. Jason had spent the majority of the night sitting on a patio chair glaring into the pool, so Bruce assumed that was where he would find him when it was time to go. Instead, when he returned to the backyard, he saw Jason across the yard talking to Hal Jordan.

Alarmed, Bruce made his way to them at once.

“—and my dates certainly always seem to like it. Of course, that being said, I’ll probably have to trade it for an actual car soon,” Hal was saying.

“Gross, why?” Jason said.

Hal opened his mouth to respond, but before he could Bruce said, “Jason!” 

Jason flinched, frowning as he turned to watch Bruce’s approach.

When Bruce reached them, Jason snapped, “What?”

“What are you doing?” Bruce asked him. 

Jason shot Bruce a perplexed look, glancing between him and Hal Jordan. He didn’t answer the question.

“Jason was just asking me some questions about my motorcycle,” Hal said, smiling at Bruce.

Bruce’s misgivings multiplied tenfold.

“Why?” Bruce asked Jason.

“Because it’s cool,” Jason said.

“Jason told me he’s into cars and bikes. Might get a bike of his own some day, right?” Hal said, glancing down to verify this with Jason.

Bruce had never heard Jason say anything about wanting a motorcycle.

“Motorcycles are dangerous,” Bruce said. “The likelihood of being killed or permanently disabled in a motorcycle accident—” 

“Dad,” Jason said.

Bruce stopped talking, and Hal picked up the conversational baton, saying, “Motorcycles are dangerous, but a lot of that depends upon the cyclist. Plus they’re less expensive than cars, so if you can’t afford a car—”

“Jason, the party’s wrapping up. The others are waiting for us,” Bruce said, interrupting Hal before he could say anything else.

“I can find my own way back to the house,” Jason said.

“Jason,” Bruce said sternly. “Go, now.”

Jason shared a look with Hal which was obviously meant to exclude Bruce.

“See you around,” Jason told Hal.

“See you,” Hal said, nodding at him. 

Without looking at Bruce, Jason headed for the gate, taking the path around Diana’s house back to the street. Bruce watched him go. 

When he was gone, Hal said, “You know, he’s a cool kid. In spite of your best efforts.”

“Excuse me?” Bruce said, turning to glare at Hal.

“So he likes motorcycles, what’s the big deal?” Hal asked.

“I try not to indulge my children and their unnecessary rebellious tendencies.” 

“Relax, Bruce,” Hal said, shrugging it off. “Every edgy teenager goes through a phase where they want a motorcycle. Motorcycles seem really sexy and cool until people realize it means getting rained on regularly and not being able to bring home groceries. Then they get a car instead.”

“That may be so, but I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t indulge them either,” Bruce told him. 

“For future reference, what topics am I allowed to discuss with your kids?” Hal asked, raising his eyebrow. “The benefits of a full night’s sleep? America’s best colleges? Flossing?”

Bruce took a deep, centering breath, and asked, “Why is it necessary for you to speak to my children at all?”

“Hey, the kid walked up and asked me about my motorcycle. What do you want me to tell him? ‘Sorry, Bruce Wayne says I’m not allowed to speak to humans under the age of twenty’?” 

“Maybe you’d understand my concerns if you had kids of your own,” Bruce said. 

An oddly vulnerable expression flickered across Hal’s face, and for a split second Bruce felt a cold flicker of shame. Somehow, he’d touched a nerve.

Then the expression was gone, and Hal’s usual easy grin was back. 

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re kind of an intense helicopter dad?” Hal asked. 

There went any trace of Bruce’s shame. Hal wasn’t even worth it.

“Good night, Hal,” Bruce said, and turned to go.

“Right, good chat.”

It was difficult to ignore him and keep walking, but Bruce managed it somehow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry the chapter's a day late!


	7. Chapter 7

Jason went back to school on Monday and Damian came down with some kind of stomach bug early Tuesday morning, so Bruce didn’t have much time to think about anything except for the kids.

He was tired at breakfast on Tuesday morning on account of having been up all night with Damian, so he wasn’t in the most patient of moods. Jason and Duke were arguing about the new Pokémon game and Tim, as usual, hadn’t come down for breakfast yet. Bruce was in the middle of packing lunches, and it hadn’t escaped his notice that Cassandra looked paler than usual and was picking at her breakfast like she didn’t want to eat anything. So when Dick came to tell him he couldn’t find his gym bag _or_ his backpack, Bruce couldn’t help but loose a sigh of annoyance.

“How did you lose both bags at the same time?” he asked. Dick opened his mouth to explain, but Bruce cut him off. “You know what, don’t answer that question. Where was the last place you had them?”

Dick scratched his head and said, “I don’t know...Kory’s maybe?”

“Did you text her and ask if she has them?” Bruce asked.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Ace’s head creeping up over the table, going for Cass’s eggs.

“Ace, down!” Bruce said.

“Yeah so...I guess my phone must be in my backpack too…” Dick said, trailing off.

Bruce sighed again.

“Ok,” he said, raising his voice so that all of the children could hear him. He must’ve sounded more irritated than usual, because they all abruptly stopped what they were doing and listened to him. “Do any of you have a way of being able to contact Kory?”

Duke shook his head at once. Cassandra and Jason exchanged a glance, then turned back to Bruce and shook their heads.

Dick held out his hand and asked, “Can I borrow your phone?”

“What for?” Bruce said.

“I can get in touch with Kory if you let me borrow your phone.”

Bruce set down the sandwich he was making and reached into his pocket to get his phone. He handed it to Dick, who immediately took it and walked out of the kitchen.

When he was gone, Bruce finished up the sandwich and checked on Cass again. Now that he had more time to focus on her, he saw that she seemed a bit listless, like she hadn’t gotten enough sleep.

“Cassandra,” he said.

Cassandra looked up at him. Though she said nothing, her expression was inquisitive.

“Are you feeling alright?” he asked her.

Cassandra nodded sluggishly.

“Are you sure? If you’re sick you shouldn’t go to school. Did you catch the same stomach bug as Damian?” he asked.

It was as if his attention caused a chain reaction. He saw her heave once and suddenly she was lurching out of her chair. She darted out of the kitchen and around the corner, and he heard the door down to the basement slam as it hit the wall.

Bruce sighed. So Cassandra was down as well. He and Alfred would have to sanitize the entire house if they were going to have any hope of preventing the other kids from getting it.

Something poked Bruce’s arm.

“Dad,” Tim said.

The poke had come from Tim. He’d snuck up on Bruce somehow.

“What is it, Tim?” Bruce asked.

“There’s something happening next door. There’s a car parked in front of Hal Jordan’s house,” Tim told him.

“Tim, I’ve asked you a thousand times not to spy on the neighbors,” Bruce said.

He especially didn’t want Tim spying on Hal Jordan. After what he’d glimpsed the other night, he considered it a small blessing that it was Bruce’s bedroom window that faced Hal Jordan’s and not one of the kids’.

Tim said, “Yeah I know, but there was this kid. He got out of the car with this lady and they went into the house. They’ve been in there for a while. I think—”

“Where are the binoculars?” Bruce asked, gazing down at Tim sternly.

Tim’s eyes widened, growing dewy and innocent.

“What?” Tim said.

“The binoculars. Go put them in my room.” 

“Why?” Tim asked.

“Because you won’t stop spying,” Bruce said. “And when you’ve done that, go check on Cassandra and ask her if she needs me to bring her anything. She’s sick.”

Tim lingered for a moment, not saying anything. Bruce could see he was in turmoil—his love of neighborhood gossip warring with his concern for Cassandra. Finally, however, he blinked, his eyes shifting upwards for an instant in an almost imperceptible eye roll as he turned away.

“Thank you, Tim,” Bruce said.

Tim didn’t say anything, and Bruce promptly forgot about the conversation in favor of telling Jason and Duke to stop yelling about Pokémon.

* * *

Cassandra and Damian stayed home for the day. The other kids went to school, and the hours, unfortunately, passed in a mad blur. Between bringing fluids and toast and applesauce to the two sick members of the household, Bruce and Alfred did some frantic cleaning. Bruce dozed in a chair for a while around 2 p.m., but then he had to get up and drive around town searching for Dick’s missing bags. By the time he’d tracked down both bags (the gym bag at Kory’s house and the backpack at Roy’s) Bruce was exhausted. But by then the other kids were home from school, and it was time to make dinner and help with homework. 

Bruce had just returned from a trip upstairs to check on Damian when he walked into the living room and caught Dick and Jason bickering.

“—and it’s not going to be cheap, alright?” Dick was saying.

“I have some money. I can afford to buy my own ticket. I can even chip in for gas,” Jason told him.

Jason’s back was turned to Bruce, but even from behind Bruce could tell that Jason was mad. His shoulders were all bunched up and tense. 

“Do you even like Titans?” Dick asked Jason. “We’ve been listening to this band for years. I thought you were only into that lo-fi stuff without lyrics.”

“I like all kinds of music!” Jason snapped. 

Bruce’s fatherly concern kicked in.

“What’s happening?” he asked them. 

Jason turned and looked at Bruce. 

“Jason wants to go to a concert with me and my friends in October,” Dick said.

Dick’s sentence ended there, but now that Jason’s back was turned to him, Dick was making _Dad, please help me_ eyes at Bruce.

Jason pointed back at Dick and said, “He doesn’t want me to go.” 

“What concert?” Bruce asked.

“Titans. They’re a rock band. The concert is in the city,” Dick said.

“You’re going all the way to Gotham for a concert?” Bruce asked Dick, incredulous.

Dick shot Bruce an exhausted look and said, “We talked about it. Weeks ago. You said I could go and I already bought my ticket.” 

Bruce didn’t remember talking about a concert, but Dick wasn’t the member of the family who had a tendency to make up stories, so it was possible he’d forgotten. Rather than continuing that argument, Bruce looked down at Jason.

“I don’t get why he doesn’t want me to go,” Jason told Bruce. “I can pay my own way. It’s not like I’m gonna embarrass him in front of his friends.”

Dick sighed and said, “It’s not like I think you’re going to embarrass me, Jay. It’s just...it’s going to be a big concert, in the middle of Gotham, and if you’re there I’ll have to spend the whole time making sure you’re not getting kidnapped or something.”

“I can take care of myself!” Jason said. “I’m bigger than you. They’d have better luck trying to grab you!”

It was in fact true that Jason was now bigger—taller and more muscular—than Dick. It wasn’t by much, however, and Jason being bigger and stronger than Dick didn’t mean Bruce agreed with him.

“You really want to spend an entire Saturday stuck in the car with me and my friends? You don’t even like half my friends,” Dick told Jason. 

“I like Roy. Roy’s the one who told me about the concert and said I should come with you,” Jason said.

Bruce felt a stab of anxiety hearing that. Bruce liked all of Dick’s friends, but Roy was one of the ones Bruce considered to be a bit of a loose cannon. Bruce trusted Dick not to go along with every one of Roy’s impulses, but Jason was only fourteen, and still impressionable.

“I’m not comfortable with you going,” Bruce told Jason.

Jason’s eyes widened.

“Dad—” Jason started.

“You’re fourteen, Jason. Dick is right. It’s not safe for you to be in the city without someone watching out for you, and that’s not fair to put on Dick when he’s been looking forward to this concert for a long time.”

Jason’s shocked expression curdled into rage.

“The other day you were like, ‘Jason, why don’t you go hang out with Dick and his friends?’ Now all the sudden you don’t want me around them?”

“You’re right, I did say that, but that was a different situation,” Bruce told him.

There was a pause, and Bruce thought that Jason was going to say something else. He was surprised when Jason turned abruptly and left the room. A couple of seconds later, Bruce heard the back door slam.

“Dad,” Dick said when Jason was gone, “thanks.”

Bruce patted Dick on the arm and turned to go, meaning to head to the backyard to check on Jason. Bad things tended to happen if Bruce let Jason bask in his anger for too long.

He was detained by Cassandra, however. Cassandra was apparently past the worst of her illness and wanted some soup. By the time Bruce was leaving Cassandra with her soup and remembered that he needed to go check on Jason in the backyard, almost thirty minutes had passed.

He walked onto the back porch, Ace following at his heels. The sun had set long ago, but the back spotlight was on, illuminating most of the backyard. Bruce glanced around and didn’t see Jason anywhere.

“Jason?” Bruce said.

There was no answer.

Feeling faintly alarmed, Bruce stepped down onto the grass and checked in all the nooks and crannies where Jason might be able to hide in the backyard, calling for him as he went. Jason wasn’t in the old treehouse, however, and he hadn’t gone around to the front yard or the garage either.

He finally gave up looking for him and pulled his phone out of his back pocket, deciding to call Jason instead.

Jason picked up after three rings.

“ _What_?” Jason said. 

“Where are you?” Bruce asked. 

“Next door.” 

Bruce, confused, asked, “At John’s house?” 

“No. I’m at Hal’s house.” 

Bruce’s brain shut down for a moment, all rational thought eclipsed by blind rage. If Jason was hanging out with Hal Jordan, Bruce was going to kill Hal.

When that initial moment of mindless fury had passed, however, it occurred to Bruce that he hadn’t heard Hal’s motorcycle return from work that evening.

“Why are you at Hal’s house? Is he even home?” Bruce asked. He turned back around and immediately headed back into the backyard.

“He’s not here. I’m talking to Kyle,” Jason said.

Bruce went around the path, through the broken gate into Hal’s backyard, saying, “Who?”

“Kyle. Hal’s godson,” Jason said.

The lights were on downstairs inside Hal’s house.

“Come outside. Into the backyard,” Bruce said.

“What for?”

“Just do it, Jason.”

Jason sighed and hung up the phone.

A few seconds later, the back door was opening and Jason stepped out onto Hal’s porch.

There was a skinny Latino kid with him. He had short black hair and was wearing an oversized black hoodie and blue jeans with holes in the knees. He and Jason looked to be about the same age, though Kyle was shorter than Jason by about half a foot. Ace barked happily and ran up to smell Kyle’s green tennis shoes.

Belatedly, Bruce remembered breakfast that morning. Tim had been trying to tell Bruce something about a car and a kid and a woman. He wondered if this was the kid Tim had been talking about.

“Hello,” Bruce said. “You must be Kyle.”

Kyle tucked his hands into the pocket of his hoodie and said, “Yeah.”

Jason waved a hand at Bruce and told Kyle, “This is my dad.”

“Nice to meet you,” Kyle said.

“Nice to meet you too. How did you and Jason meet?” Bruce asked.

“Jason was throwing rocks into Hal’s pool,” Kyle said.

“ _Jason_ ,” Bruce said, shooting his son an exasperated look.

“What? They’re not using it right now,” Jason said.

Bruce closed his eyes and took a deep breath before he continued. He didn’t want to gloss over Jason’s complete lack of boundaries, but at the moment Kyle was the more pressing concern. What was he doing hanging out at Hal’s house at 8 o’clock at night while Hal wasn’t there? If he was Jason’s age then he was probably old enough to take care of himself, but that didn’t mean Bruce had to like it.

“Where’s Hal?” Bruce asked.

“He’s at work right now,” Kyle said.

“This late?” Bruce said. 

Kyle shrugged.

“Is there anyone else here?” Bruce asked. 

Kyle shot a confused look at Jason and said, “No.” 

“Ok. So have you had dinner?” Bruce asked him.

“He’s fifteen, dad, not five,” Jason said.

So Kyle was very close to Jason’s age, then. Only about a year older. 

“Hal gave me some money before he left for work. I ordered pizza,” Kyle said.

At least Hal had done that much.

“Well, if you’d like to come over to our house, my father made some cookies yesterday and we still have some left,” Bruce said.

Jason and Kyle exchanged a look. Jason said, “Alfred does make pretty good cookies. And we have a Switch so we can play Pokémon.”

Kyle shrugged and said, “Sure. I’ll text Hal and let him know.”

Bruce felt some of the tension come out of his shoulders, and he hadn’t even realized he’d felt so tense until it was gone.

“Great,” Bruce said. He turned, leading the boys out of Hal’s yard and into his house.

* * *

“So, Kyle,” Bruce said, once the boys had their cookies and were happily playing Pokémon in the den. “Are you from the area?” 

Kyle shrugged, not taking his eyes off the screen, and said, “No. I’m from California.” 

“California, wow. So far.”

“I guess,” Kyle said, shrugging again.

Kyle seemed to communicate primarily through shrugs. 

“And you’re staying with Hal?” Bruce asked. 

“Yeah,” Kyle said. 

Bruce made a thoughtful noise, studying Kyle’s profile while he and Jason conferred quietly about the game. He was dying to know how Kyle came to be Hal’s godson, but knew it was far too rude to just come out and ask.

“So do you know Hal from when he lived in California?” Bruce asked. 

“Dad, can you please stop interrogating him?” Jason asked, shooting Bruce an annoyed look over his shoulder.

Bruce held up his hands in a gesture of defeat and got up, transplanting himself from the chair by the TV to Alfred’s chair over by the window. He didn’t have anything else to do, so he got out his phone.

He was intending to check his email, but saw that he’d received a text from Clark. The message was a forwarded contact for somebody named Vivian Sinclair.

Annoyed, Bruce opened up his messenger app and ignored the contact, sending Clark a quick message. 

Bruce: What is this? 

It didn’t take long for Clark to text back. 

Clark: What does it look like? 

Bruce: It looks like that reporter’s phone number. 

Clark: She asked about you today. I said I would pass her number along in case you were interested. 

Sighing, Bruce tapped on the contact and took a closer look at it. It was merely her phone number and a work email in the same format as Clark’s. There was no other information. Bruce figured there’d be a picture of her on the Daily Planet’s website, but actually looking up a photo seemed tacky. Clark said he would like her, and Clark knew Bruce pretty well. If he said Bruce would find her attractive and interesting then he probably would.

He was still examining Vivian Sinclair’s phone number when Alfred came into the den with a tray.

“I brought you boys some hot chocolate,” Alfred said. 

“Thanks Alfie,” Jason said, and snatched one of the mugs off the tray as soon as Alfred set it on the coffee table.

Kyle was a bit slower to go for the hot chocolate, but did finally take the second cup. He took a tentative sip, and then, apparently emboldened by the fact that it was actual cocoa and not poison, a bigger sip. 

“How long will you be staying with Mr. Jordan, Kyle?” Alfred asked. 

The same question would’ve gotten Bruce kicked out of the room, but Jason ignored Alfred and kept playing the game. Kyle, meanwhile, answered Alfred’s question with another shrug. 

“Is Hal a relative of yours?” Alfred asked him.

“Not really,” Kyle said. “He’s my godfather.” 

“I see,” Alfred said.

Bruce felt his phone vibrate and picked it up to check the screen. 

Clark: No pressure to go out with her, of course. I just thought you might like to think about it. 

Although Bruce was a little annoyed again, he managed to tap out a quick “Thanks” and then set his phone face down on the side table.

“Is there nothing for you to do while Hal is at work?” Alfred asked Kyle. 

“Well...not really. I’m going to be starting school again soon though, so I won’t be at home all the time while Hal’s not there,” Kyle said.

“Are you enrolling at Jason’s school?” Alfred asked, and Kyle nodded.

If Kyle was enrolling at Jason’s school, then that meant that he must be staying with Hal for a fair chunk of time. Bruce’s curiosity was in overdrive, but he managed to keep his mouth shut. Bits and pieces of things he’d overheard the past weekend at Diana’s weekend came back to him and suddenly made sense. Hal had been telling Jason that he’d need to get a car soon. It seemed fair to guess that Kyle was the reason why. At least Hal was smart enough to realize he shouldn’t put a teenager on the back of a motorcycle. 

“Please, take another cookie,” Alfred said, gesturing at the tray. “When will you be officially enrolled?”

“I’m not sure,” Kyle said, and he did take another cookie. “Hal said he has to work the next couple of days, so we’re not going to be able to go up to talk to the office yet.” 

“Will you be alone while your godfather is working?” Alfred asked. 

Kyle nodded. 

“Well, you are welcome to come over and knock on the door if you need anything,” Alfred said. “Between Bruce and I, you can usually count on finding one of us here.” 

“Thanks,” Kyle said. Judging from his expression, Bruce thought it unlikely that Kyle would come ask for any help.

“What grade are you in?” Alfred asked. 

“I’m a sophomore,” Kyle told him.

“Ah, you’re a year ahead of Jason.” 

“We’d be in the same grade if Bruce let me skip eighth grade like I wanted to,” Jason told Kyle, his tone scathing.

“Please don’t restart that argument in front of a guest,” Bruce said.

Jason was about to snap back at Bruce, but the doorbell rang before he could. 

“I’ll get it,” Bruce said, and got up immediately to head for the front door.

Nobody followed him out of the den to the front hallway, apparently unconcerned by visitors ringing the doorbell at 9 o’clock at night.

Bruce opened the door and was a little surprised to find Hal standing on the front stoop. He hadn’t heard Hal’s motorcycle this time, but then the video game was making a lot of noise.

Hal was still wearing his flight suit, which had a large oil stain across the front of it. He didn’t say hello or smile, instead jumping right to, “Kyle’s here?”

Bruce nodded and jerked his head in the direction of the den, indicating that Hal should follow. They went back around the stairwell and down the steps into the main living area. As soon as his gaze found his godson, Hal said, “Kyle!”

“Hey Hal,” Kyle said, barely glancing up from the TV screen.

“Sorry I’m late, kid,” Hal said. “We should head back to the house.” 

Bruce crossed his arms over his chest and raised an eyebrow as he observed this conversation.

“Ok,” Kyle said. 

Jason paused the game and Kyle got up, going to Hal’s side. Hal patted him on the back, shooting him a grin. Kyle gave him a weak smile in return. 

Then Hal looked back over to Bruce and Alfred. Bruce stared at him, not uncrossing his arms. For a moment, Bruce almost thought that Hal was going to leap into some defensive explanation for why he’d left a 15 year-old by himself in a strange house all day. 

Hal, unsurprisingly, didn’t bother to explain himself. 

“Thanks for keeping an eye on Kyle. We’ll get out of your hair,” Hal said. 

Hal tugged on the sleeve of Kyle’s hoodie and the two of them turned out of the room and left. 

Bruce followed them into the hall to the door. As soon as their feet touched the sidewalk, they began murmuring to each other. Bruce didn’t try to eavesdrop, and instead shut the door and locked it. 

Bruce turned to head back to the den, but just as he made it to the entryway, Jason stepped out. He could see that Jason had turned off the TV and put the Switch away. 

“Where are you going?” Bruce asked him. 

“Upstairs to read.”

“What about Pokémon?” 

Jason shrugged and said, “I want to read.” 

“I thought you didn’t really like video games,” Bruce said. 

“The new Pokémon game is ok.”

Jason edged around Bruce, making a beeline for the stairs. He took the steps two and three at a time, booming all the way up to the second floor, and Bruce heard his bedroom door slam not long after. 

Shaking his head, Bruce went into the den to help Alfred clean up the hot chocolate. Alfred had already loaded the cups onto the tray, however, so there wasn’t anything for Bruce to help with. 

“Don’t say a word,” Alfred said. 

“What are you talking about?” Bruce asked. 

“I’m developing a sixth sense for when you want to complain about the neighbor,” Alfred said. 

Bruce ignored this and said, “Leaving a fifteen year old at home all day seems negligent. Kyle isn’t even from this part of the country, let alone this city. What if there was some kind of emergency?”

“Then Kyle would call 911,” Alfred said, a bit gruff. “He seems like an intelligent lad.”

Bruce’s father took the tray out of the room to the kitchen. Although Alfred was the one who left, Bruce knew that he was the one who had been dismissed.

Bruce didn’t really care. Bruce’s opinion of Hal had never been lower, and there was nothing Alfred or anybody else could say that would change that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm about to go see Birds of Prey. I'm worried about Cass's characterization, but at least she's finally in a movie I guess??


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delayed chapter! I realized I was massively dissatisfied with the direction this story was taking so I took a couple of weeks to fix my outline and get back on track. Since I've had to discard some chapters that were already written, I can't promise I will definitely have a chapter posted by next Saturday, but rest assured I haven't abandoned this work.

Bruce wasn’t quite sure how it happened, but that Saturday night he found himself on a date.

Vivian Sinclair was a very petite woman with long sheets of brown hair. Her lovely eyes were brown as well, and so huge and dark that it was hard to spot her pupils. Even with heels on she barely came up to Bruce’s elbow, but she was so charismatic and had such a commanding presence that she seemed to be much taller.

They met for dinner at a casual local restaurant, one with soothing dark lighting and just enough background chatter so that the evening didn’t feel too intimate. When the waiter had left to get their drinks, Vivian turned to him, smiling.

“So, Bruce,” she said, folding her hands in front of her on the table. “Clark has told me a lot about you.”

Bruce shot her a wry smile, pushing down a stab of anxiety. As soon as he remembered how to tap back into his long-buried charm he’d be fine, but it had been a long time since he’d last been on a date.

“That’s alarming to hear. Neighbors always have the best stories,” he told her.

Vivian smiled and said, “All good things, of course. Clark gushes about you. I think he’d propose if he didn’t already have Lois.”

“Clark also told me a lot about you,” Bruce said. “He’s been very impressed with your work. Why did you decide to become a reporter?”

“Oh, well that’s a loaded question,” Vivian said, raising her eyebrows.

The question had its intended effect. Vivian began talking about her work, the paper, stories she’d worked on, people she’d interviewed. She was vague with the details about some of the stories she was currently working on, which Bruce accepted without complaint. He found that she had a lot of strong opinions about the power and duty of the press.

Between her stories, the waiter brought their drinks and took their food orders. Bruce continued to ask leading questions, ones which were intended to keep Vivian talking. It was something Bruce had learned from Alfred at a young age. People liked it when they got to talk about things that were important to them.

She was still telling stories when their food arrived. Bruce didn’t mind listening, really. Journalists had always interested him, and had only interested him even more since he met Clark. Journalists got to investigate crimes and abuses of power. It was like being a detective, only without the uncomfortable requirement of having to carry a gun. He liked to imagine that if he’d chosen a profession, he would’ve chosen something like journalism.

They were halfway through their meal and Vivian was in the middle of a story about her investigation of the business mogul Lex Luthor when she seemed to realize what Bruce had been up to.

“I am rambling about myself so much and you aren’t stopping me,” she said. “I’m so sorry. Once I get started about the paper, sometimes it’s hard to stop talking.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Bruce said, smiling at her. “It’s interesting when you talk. I have enjoyed listening to your stories.”

Vivian’s eyes sparkled at him from across the table, glinting with mischievousness.

“Clark told me that you are a full time parent. How many kids do you have?” she asked, and Bruce was aware of the fact that she was using his own tactic on him.

“Six total,” Bruce told her. “Four adopted children, one biological child, and one foster child.”

“Wow,” Vivian said, raising her eyebrows. “Six is so many.”

Bruce’s unease—which had vanished while the conversation was focused on Vivian—trickled back.

“Well, there’s a lot of children who need safe places to live,” he said.

“That’s definitely true,” Vivian said. “So, four adopted kids. How did that happen? If you don’t mind me asking. Did you know all of their birth parents?”

Bruce couldn’t decide if he minded the question or not, but he found he wanted to answer, so he guessed he didn’t mind that much.

“I didn’t know their parents,” Bruce told her. “Dick was my first, and he came to live with me when he was ten. A drunk driver struck his parents’ car and killed them. Dick was in the car and miraculously survived. I read about the accident in the news and found that I couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened. I decided to take Dick in as a foster child, but wound up loving him so much that I adopted him when he was twelve. He’s seventeen now.”

“What about the others?” Vivian asked, and frowned when she added, “They’re not all orphans, I hope.”

Bruce shook his head.

“Jason’s mother passed away, but his father is still alive. He’s in prison out of state. Jason is my second eldest. He was about nine when he came to live with me. He’d been living in a group home before that, but he was having problems with aggression. His social worker thought he needed a caretaker who could devote more time to him. I adopted him the same year he came to live with me.”

It was as if the floodgates had opened. Bruce told himself to stop talking, but couldn’t help himself. When it came to the kids, he could talk all day.

“The following year Cassandra and Tim came to live with me within weeks of each other. Their parents are still alive. In both of their cases it was a matter of neglect. Tim’s parents are very wealthy, but they’d leave on long trips and forget all about him. The state only caught on when Tim started skipping school too much and he was assigned a truancy officer. His parents put up a mediocre fight when Tim was removed from their custody, and disappeared when they lost their case.”

Vivian’s face was serious and inquisitive, but she said nothing, so Bruce went on.

“Cassandra’s father was involved in some kind of doomsday cult. He kept her isolated upstate and was apparently training her to survive on her own in the wilderness. She finally escaped and met a police officer, who figured out she couldn’t read or write and could barely talk. Her father’s land was raided, and he was sent to jail. Since I have a reputation in the foster community for having a way with kids from difficult circumstances, I was asked to help Cassandra.”

Vivian’s eyes had grown wide as he’d talked about Cassandra. It occurred to Bruce, belatedly, that all of this information about his adopted children’s troubling backgrounds was perhaps a bit too much for a first date.

“I make it sound like they have a lot of problems. They don’t. The kids are wonderful,” Bruce said. “Cassandra wouldn’t hurt a fly, and Tim stopped trying to skip school within weeks of coming to live with me. Jason gets surly sometimes, but he’s calmed down a lot since he was nine.”

Except for when Tim was involved, but Bruce decided not to mention that. He moved on to Damian and Duke.

“Damian is my youngest and my only biological son. His mother is an environmental activist. I became his primary caretaker when she decided she needed more time to focus on her work,” Bruce said. “And Duke is the newest member of the household. His parents are still alive, but they are very ill. He’s living with me until they get better.”

They fell silent. Vivian seemed not to know what to say. As it was her job to ask people questions, Bruce didn’t think this was a great sign. The date had been going so well until Bruce started talking about the kids.

“So,” Vivian said, idly tapping her fork on her plate, “I have another intrusive question.”

Bruce braced himself, but nodded to indicate she should continue.

“How on earth do you afford to take care of them all?” she asked. “Kids are so expensive, and most of yours are teens or preteens, right? Aren’t they eating you out of house and home?”

This, actually, made Bruce smile a little. It had not been the question he’d been expecting.

“I inherited money from my parents,” Bruce said. “The kids are expensive, but it’s nothing I can’t afford. Without the kids, I have no idea what I’d be doing with my life and my money."

Vivian studied him. There was a shrewd look on her face which he could not quite translate.

Just then, the waiter arrived to ask them if they wanted any dessert. Bruce was happy for the interruption. Vivian ordered chocolate cake for both of them, and the waiter refilled their drinks. He was slightly apprehensive about where the conversation would turn when the waiter walked away.

Vivian turned back to Bruce and smiled as she picked up her wine glass, asking, “Are you a hockey fan, by any chance?”

Bruce loosed a breath, and the floodgates opened again; they spent most of the rest of the evening discussing what an abysmal season the Gotham Bats had last year.

* * *

Overall, the date went very well. After they complained about the Gotham Bats for a while, they discussed books. They had a lot in common, and Vivian had a wicked sense of humor. They finished their meal and walked to the train station together, Bruce laughing at Vivian’s stories about Clark and Lois and the paper.

They shared a kiss on the train platform. It was a brief, tentative kiss, and then Vivian’s train arrived, so she ran off before it left without her. Though brief, it was a nice kiss, one that left him wishing it had gone on longer.

Bruce was in such a good mood that he barely noticed the ride home. Before he knew it, the train was arriving at his station and he had to walk back to his car.

He pulled into the neighborhood and, though it was after ten, was unsurprised to drive up to his house and see that several lights were still on. Bruce parked in the driveway and went in through the garage.

Bruce walked into the house to find Bart in the kitchen begging Alfred to order pizza. He observed as he pulled his shoes off.

“It’s far too late for pizza, Bart,” Alfred said. “If you’re that hungry, I could prepare some oatmeal with brown sugar for you.”

“Uh, I don’t really care for oatmeal. Can’t I have some cereal?” 

“The only cereal in the house belongs to Dick. You are welcome to ask Dick if you can have some,” Alfred said.

Bart snorted and said, “No way that’s gonna happen. I’ll take the oatmeal.” 

“I will bring it into the den shortly,” Alfred said.

“Thanks Alfred!” Bart said, and bolted out of the kitchen as he yelled, “Hey, Mr. Wayne!”

Bruce shot Alfred a bemused look when Bart was gone.

“What happened?” Bruce asked as Alfred began to prepare Bart’s oatmeal. “When I left, Jason and Damian were the only ones here.”

“Yes, well, they all descended at once,” Alfred said. “Tim arrived with Bart and Conner in tow, and then Dick, Roy, and Wally came over because they were hungry. Then Cassandra and Duke got home from baseball practice, and they brought Stephanie with them. We have a full house this evening, I’m afraid.”

“Where’s Damian?” Bruce asked.

“He was irritable about all the noise and wandered off to bed about an hour ago. Though how he can sleep through all of this chaos is a mystery to me,” Alfred said.

Chaos was an accurate description for it. Booming video game sounds were coming from the den, and there was music playing upstairs as well. There was even some excited chatter drifting up the stairwell from Cassandra’s room.

“Well, it’s getting late. We’d better send the rest of them to bed too,” Bruce said.

“I will handle the boys in the den. Tim and Duke are playing that video game with Conner and Bart, and they show no sign of stopping any time soon."

“I’ll check on Cassandra and Stephanie,” Bruce said, and Alfred nodded.

The door to Cassandra’s room was cracked, but he made sure to stomp a bit as he made his way downstairs so they’d hear him coming. He didn’t know what was happening down there, but Stephanie was certainly excited about something. Sometimes he thought that Stephanie was twice as loud as everybody else on purpose in order to make up for how quiet Cassandra was.

Bruce was glad he arrived when he did. He got to the bottom step just in time to see that Cassandra was about to backflip off the end of her bed. Stephanie was cheering her on and had her phone out, apparently ready to film it.

“Cassandra!” Bruce said.

Cassandra flinched and looked up, wobbling a bit on the end of her bed.

“What on earth are you doing?” he asked.

“Dick taught her how to do a flip,” Stephanie said.

“Do _not_ do a flip,” Bruce said. “No flipping off anything in the house.”

Cassandra looked disappointed, but stepped off the bed. Stephanie made a face and tossed her phone onto the bed.

“It’s late. You two should be getting ready for bed. Does your mom know you’re here, Stephanie?” Bruce asked.

Stephanie nodded.

“Good. Don’t forget to brush your teeth. I’m going to go upstairs and talk to Dick about teaching you to do flips now,” he said, directing a stern look at his daughter.

Cassandra said nothing in reply, but her expression was unrepentant.

Sighing, Bruce stomped back up the multiple stairwells up to the second floor.

He meant to go straight to Dick’s room to nag him about what he was teaching Cassandra, but he got stuck on his way past Jason’s room. The door to Jason’s room was shut, of course, but Bruce could hear talking inside. Curious, Bruce stopped and went back to it, tapping on the door.

“What?” Jason yelled.

“Can I come in?” Bruce asked.

“I guess,” Jason said, sounding annoyed. Bruce opened the door anyway.

Jason and Kyle were sitting on the floor in the middle of Jason’s room, surrounded by a ring of scattered LEGO pieces.

Jason and Kyle stared at him for a moment. Bruce stared back.

“LEGOs?” Bruce finally said.

“It’s not like anybody ever puts them together,” Jason said.

“I didn’t know you liked LEGOs,” Bruce told him.

Jason shrugged. “Tim wouldn’t give up the Switch and I don’t have a TV. We wanted something to do.” 

Bruce accepted this silently and turned to look at Kyle. 

“How are you, Kyle?” Bruce asked.

“Good,” Kyle said, eyes shifting back and forth from Jason to Bruce.

“Started school yet?” Bruce asked. 

“He starts on Monday,” Jason said, answering for Kyle.

“Oh, that’s good. Kane High is a good school. You’ll like it,” Bruce said.

“Yeah, I guess,” Kyle said.

“Are you staying over tonight?” Bruce asked, when it became obvious that Kyle did not want to make smalltalk.

Kyle still didn’t answer. Instead he looked over at Jason, and Jason answered for him, saying, “Yes, he is.”

This, for some weird reason Bruce couldn’t quite pinpoint, put him at ease.

“Does Hal know you’re staying here?” Bruce asked.

Kyle nodded and said, “I texted him.” 

“Ok,” Bruce said, satisfied. “Well, it’s getting late. Keep an eye on the clock, ok? I don’t want you two staying up too late. Jason, I’ll leave some extra blankets next to your door. Have a good night, boys.”

“Night,” Kyle said. Jason didn’t reply, and Bruce shut the door.

Next Bruce went up to the attic to tell Dick to turn his music down and chide him for teaching Cassandra how to do a backflip. Dick, predictably, put on an innocent expression and denied having taught Cassandra how to do anything. Behind him, Roy and Wally’s expressions gave him away.

Bruce left Dick’s room knowing that the conversation had been unsuccessful and he would need to return to it later. At least Dick had turned his music down so that it wasn’t disturbing the whole house.

Bruce went downstairs to get some extra blankets and ran into Alfred in the hall. Alfred was already raiding the linen closet, pulling out stacks of blankets.

“You didn’t tell me that Kyle was here,” Bruce said.

“Oh, yes, I forgot about that tidbit,” Alfred said. “Is he staying over this evening?”

“Yes, he is. I’m surprised that Jason and Kyle have become so chummy so fast,” Bruce said, keeping his voice low. “They only just met a few days ago.”

“Such is the way of youthful friendships,” Alfred commented. “Strangers one moment, friends the next.”

“Well, I hope they stay friends,” Bruce said, unsure of what else he could say.

“They certainly seem to get along quite well. Jason invited Kyle over sometime around dinner and they’ve barely left his room since. I suspect he’s hoarding his new friend.”

Bruce accepted this with a grunt.

“I’m going to take these blankets upstairs, and then I’m going to get ready for bed too,” Bruce said. He grabbed a couple of the thicker blankets for Kyle and an extra pillow as well.

As he turned to go, Alfred said, “You’re not going to tell me how your date went?”

Bruce stopped, half-turning back to Alfred, and he said, “It was great.”

“Good,” Alfred said, and he sounded pleased. “Do you think you’ll see her again?”

“I don’t know. If she wants to see me again,” Bruce said, and left before Alfred could badger him about it anymore.

* * *

Bruce retreated to the calm and quiet of his own bedroom. Exhaustion hit him like a wave as soon as his door was shut. It had been a good day, but a long one.

Bruce turned on a lamp and began to empty his pockets and dump the contents into a bowl on his dresser. He pulled out his wallet, his train ticket, his keys. When he pulled out his phone, he saw that he had a new message. It was from Vivian.

Vivian: Just wanted to let you know I made it home safe. I hope you did too. It was nice talking to you tonight.

Pleased, Bruce tapped out a quick reply.

Bruce: I did get home safe. I enjoyed tonight too.

Bruce set his phone down on the bedside table and unbuttoned his shirt, tugging it off and tossing it into the hamper hidden against the wall in his closet. The undershirt came next, and Bruce was just about to unbutton his pants when a sudden light in the corner of his eye caught his attention. He looked that way, somehow knowing what he was about to see before he saw it.

Hal had just come up to his room entangled in the arms of another person. This time, however, he wasn’t entangled in the arms of a woman.

Hal was entangled in the arms of a man.

Just like the last time, Bruce found himself momentarily frozen, watching even while he knew he shouldn’t. The man was a bit taller than Hal, and thin, not as fit. He had dark hair. Hal and the man stumbled in the direction of the bed, mouths locked on each other, only pausing once in a while to remove an article of clothing.

Hal was kissing a man.

Bruce’s mind rebelled against this new knowledge even as the irrefutable evidence was before him. Hal liked men as well as women.

As this cold fact sunk in, Bruce’s sense returned. He went over to the window and shut the blinds, hiding the scene next door. Hal really needed to start shutting his curtains before he brought dates home.

Bruce finished undressing on autopilot, changing into pajamas and brushing his teeth without noticing he was doing so.

He shut off the bathroom light and went to his bed, tugging the blanket and sheets back. He got into bed and shut off the lamp. Though exhausted, Bruce stared into the darkness of his bedroom, unable to shut his eyes.

It didn’t change anything. This was new information about Hal, information Bruce hadn’t expected, but it didn’t alter the fact that Hal was still an insufferable, irresponsible man.

At least Hal hadn’t brought his date home while Kyle was in the house.

With this in mind, Bruce shut his eyes and slipped into sleep.


	9. Chapter 9

Over the following week, Bruce put what he saw out of his mind.

The only times Bruce let himself even think about Hal were when somebody else brought him up, which, all things considered, didn’t happen very often. Alfred brought him up briefly on Tuesday night, mentioning that he spoke to Hal about who in the city to talk to about getting a recycling bin. Then Kyle brought Hal up on Thursday after school when he told Alfred and Jason that Hal would be home from work late. As soon as both conversations turned away from Hal, so too did Bruce’s mind.

So the next time Bruce actually saw Hal, it was a bit of a shock to his system.

On Friday morning, Bruce glanced around the neighborhood as he was walking with Dick and Jason to the car. He saw that Hal was out on his own driveway, crouched down next to his motorcycle, and something in Bruce’s brain snagged.

“Dad?” Dick said.

Bruce looked over at his son and said, “What?”

“You were saying something about Damian and an audition next Monday?”

“Oh, right,” Bruce said. “Where was I?”

“Alfred is taking Damian to the community theater to audition for a role in Pinocchio so I need to…?” Dick trailed off, raising his eyebrows.

“Oh, right. So you’ll need to take my car to practice,” Bruce said.

“Oh, that’s fine,” Dick said, shrugging.

Bruce unlocked the SUV and Dick went to the backseat, climbing in and throwing himself across the bench.

“Dad?” Jason said.

Bruce turned and looked upon his second son, raising an inquisitive eyebrow.

“Is it ok if Kyle rides with us?” Jason asked.

“Yes?” Bruce said, but Bruce could hear how uncertain his answer had sounded, almost like a question.

“Kyle’s been walking to school this week since Hal doesn’t have a car yet,” Jason said.

“Well, he can come with us if he’s ready to go now,” Bruce said.

“I’ll text him,” Jason said.

Bruce and Jason got into the car, but they didn’t leave right away. Jason texted Kyle, and about a minute later, Kyle emerged from Hal’s house with a backpack slung over one shoulder. Bruce watched as Kyle jogged past Hal, calling something as he passed. Hal said something back, but didn’t take his focus away from whatever it was that he was doing with his motorcycle.

There were some tools scattered around the concrete surrounding Hal. As Kyle approached, Bruce almost asked Jason if he knew what was wrong with Hal’s motorcycle, but thought better of it.

Then it was too late to ask anything, because Kyle was opening the car door.

“Get out of the way, Dick,” Jason said, shoving at his older brother.

Dick grunted but did roll upright so that he was no longer taking so much space in the backseat. Jason scooted over so Kyle could climb inside the car.

“Morning, Kyle,” Bruce said.

“Morning, Mr. Wayne,” Kyle said, depositing his backpack onto the floor at his feet.

“Seatbelts on, boys,” Bruce said.

The boys complied without resistance, and Bruce turned on the engine and backed out of the driveway.

Hal didn’t look up from his motorcycle as they passed in the SUV. Once again, Bruce found himself almost asking what was wrong with Hal’s motorcycle. Kyle and Jason started talking about shop, the one class they both shared, however, and Bruce didn’t get the chance.

Hadn’t Hal said that he was going to sell the motorcycle and get a car? It was odd that he hadn’t done so yet. Maybe he didn’t have the money?

By the time Jason, Kyle, and Dick were at school and Bruce was driving back into the neighborhood, both Hal and his motorcycle were gone. The long stretch of pavement leading up to Hal’s house was empty.

Bruce put the man out of his mind once again.

* * *

Alfred went out to run the usual errands that morning after the kids were all at school, so Bruce had most of the day to himself.

With the rest of the house in relative order for once, Bruce devoted himself to trying to troubleshoot what was wrong with his shower and its low water pressure.

He was so absorbed in what he was doing that he almost didn’t hear his phone buzzing on top of his dresser. Wiping his hands, Bruce went over to the dresser and picked up the device, seeing the name Vivian Sinclair on the screen before he pressed the answer button and put it to his ear.

“Hello?”

“Bruce?” Vivian said. “Hey, it’s me.”

“Hello, Vivian. How are you?” Bruce asked, pleased. They’d set up their second date via text, so it was nice to hear her voice.

“I’m great. Look, I’m so sorry to do this, but I have to back out of our date tomorrow,” she said.

Bruce’s pleasure at hearing her voice dissipated.

“Oh,” he said, unable to mask his disappointment. “That’s too bad. Is everything alright?”

“Yes, everything’s fine. I got handed kind of a big story at the last minute, so I’ll be stuck here all weekend trying to get it done before the deadline on Tuesday,” she said.

“I see,” Bruce said.

At least he was fairly certain it wasn’t an excuse. Clark and Lois often got stuck working on big stories over holidays and weekends too, and he could hear her typing furiously even as they were talking on the phone.

“I’ll make it up to you, I promise,” Vivian said. “Maybe we could have dinner on Tuesday night, once my story is submitted?”

“I’ll have to talk to Alfred about watching the kids that night. He’s not here at the moment, but I can get back to you later,” Bruce said.

“That sounds great. Sorry again, Bruce.”

“It’s no problem, really.”

Vivian apologized another couple of times about having to cut their conversation so short, then they said their goodbyes and Bruce hung up.

Bruce returned his phone to the top of his dresser and went back to his task in the bathroom, feeling considerably less cheerful now. It didn’t help that his investigation of the water pressure issue got him nowhere. He wasn’t able to fix anything, and getting an up close look at his shower made him realize how dirty the tile was. Now he’d have to clean the tile _and_ call a plumber anyway.

Bruce was scrubbing away at the tile about an hour later when his phone began buzzing again. He was scrubbing so vigorously that he almost didn’t hear it and get to the phone in time.

This time, the caller wasn’t one of his contacts, but Bruce thought he recognized the number anyway. He pressed the answer button and put the phone to his ear.

“Hello?” he asked, already wary.

“Mr. Wayne? This is Dr. Quinn from Kane High School. It’s about your son, Jason,” she said.

“Is he alright?” Bruce asked.

“He’s fine, sir, but he got into another fight today. We’ll need you to come up to the school to speak to Principal Doe,” she said.

Bruce told Dr. Quinn he’d be right there and hung up the phone. Sighing, Bruce went to fetch his shoes and jacket and left to go back up to the high school.

* * *

Just like the previous time, Bruce walked into the administrative offices and only had eyes for Jason.

Jason was sitting in one of the chairs across from the administrative assistant’s desk. He was pressing a cold compress to his cheekbone and the front of his usual ratty jean jacket was ripped. The white t-shirt underneath the torn jacket had a smear of bright blood streaked across it.

Bruce went right past the administrative assistant and knelt down in front of Jason for a better look.

“Jason! Are you alright?” Bruce said.

Jason’s eyes widened when Bruce dropped down in front of him, but he recovered fast.

“I’m fine,” Jason said.

“You’re covered in blood!”

“It’s not mine,” Jason said, shrugging.

It was only then that Bruce noticed there was someone seated in the chair next to Jason, and that he recognized the person. It was Kyle. There was a new hole in the knee of Kyle’s jeans, one stained with dirt and drying blood, and underneath the fabric Bruce could see there was a bandage. There was also a scrape on his cheek, the skin reddened but not broken. He had one of his feet propped up on his good knee and was tapping his ankle with his thumb.

“Kyle?” Bruce said.

“Hey Mr. Wayne,” Kyle said.

Bruce glanced between Jason and Kyle. Surely they hadn’t fought each other?

“Are you alright, Kyle? What happened?” Bruce asked.

Neither of them got a chance to answer him, because the administrative assistant said, “Principal Doe is ready to talk to you, Mr. Wayne.”

Bruce stood up and let the assistant lead him into Principal Doe’s office.

The assistant shut the door as Principal Doe looked up from his computer. He shot Bruce a broad smile as he swiveled in his chair to face him, then clasped his hands on his desk in front of him.

“Mr. Wayne. So nice to see you again.”

Bruce had never liked Principal Doe. He’d been summoned up to the high school to speak to the man for various reasons since Dick started high school, and found it disconcerting how he was always smiling.

“What happened?” Bruce asked him, not wasting time on pleasantries.

“I’m afraid your son and Mr. Rayner initiated a fight with another student this morning in the hallway during the last passing period.”

“A fight about what?”

“That remains unclear.”

Irritated, Bruce asked, “And what do Jason and Kyle say happened?”

Principal Doe’s eyes widened slightly in response to Bruce’s tone, but he still didn’t stop smiling all the way when he said, “Your son and Mr. Rayner claim that the student they fought said something offensive about a female classmate. However, he and his friends have denied that he said anything offensive.”

Bruce crossed his arms over his chest and glowered down at Principal Doe.

“So let me get this straight. Jason and Kyle told you that they fought this kid because he said something offensive about a woman, and when he and his friends say otherwise, you just believe them?”

“As I said, there were no witnesses except for the individuals involved in the dispute,” Principal Doe said, his eyes wide but sparkling.

“What about the girl?”

“She wasn’t present. Kyle and Jason claim they heard this student say something about her, but she had already left the hallway. I checked the camera footage.”

_Of course he did_ , Bruce thought.

“The student they fought has a sterling record, Mr. Wayne. Not so much as a detention. Your son, on the other hand, has already received a suspension once this year for fighting another student. This is his second strike. I don’t suppose I need to remind you what will happen if he receives a third?”

Inwardly, Bruce boiled. The situation with Connor Hawke had been bad, but it had also been an aberration. Jason had been in a much better mood ever since he met Kyle. Bruce refused to believe that both Jason and Kyle would fight another student without a very good reason.

Bruce was just about to ask where this other student was when there was a commotion beyond the door to Principal Doe’s office. Bruce turned to glance at the door just as it burst open.

Hal Jordan and the harassed-looking administrative assistant were standing on the other side.

“—as I told you before Mr. Jordan, Principal Doe needs to meet with both of you alone,” the administrative assistant was saying.

Bruce and Hal stared at each other for a second, and then Hal turned to the principal.

“You’re the principal?” Hal asked him.

Principal Doe nodded, still smiling as he examined Hal.

“I presume that you are Kyle Rayner’s guardian?” Principal Doe asked him.

“I am,” Hal said. “I want to know what the hell is going on.”

“Sir—” the assistant said, but Principal Doe waved her off.

“It’s fine, Duela. Close the door, please,” he said.

Duela looked irritable about it, but shut the door, closing Bruce in the office again with Principal Doe and now Hal.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Jordan,” Principal Doe said, and gestured to one of the ugly yellow chairs across from his desk. “Take a seat?”

“I’ll stand, thanks,” Hal said, mirroring Bruce’s pose when he crossed his arms over his chest. “Now could somebody please explain why my godson has a busted knee?”

Bruce listened as Principal Doe gave Hal the recap of Jason and Kyle’s fight with the unnamed third student. Hal took it all about as well as Bruce had.

“This is insane! Of course the kid’s cronies would back him up and pretend he didn’t say anything. And now he’s free to go back to class while you’re, what? Suspending Kyle and Jason?” Hal asked.

“Kyle is suspended for the rest of the day and will need to go home. Since this is Mr. Rayner’s first infraction, he will be given in-school suspension for three days next week, Monday through Wednesday,” Principal Doe said.

“Kyle just started school! He needs to be in his classes catching up with everybody else,” Hal said. 

“Students who receive in-school suspension work on their assignments out in one of the temporary buildings and they are supervised by a teacher,” Principal Doe said, unruffled by Hal’s temper. “He will have all of that time to catch up with the rest of his classmates. He just won’t be doing it in his usual classrooms.”

Hal looked like he was about to say something else, but Principal Doe turned to Bruce.

“Jason is also suspended for the rest of the day. He may return to school on Thursday the 17th,” Principal Doe told him.

Bruce didn’t acknowledge this in any way, instead continuing to glare at Principal Doe. Principal Doe, of course, didn’t seem to be particularly affected by it and gazed back at Bruce with a vacantly pleased expression on his face.

If Jason did this again over the course of the school year, Principal Doe would expel him. And it was only October. As much as Bruce wanted to believe in his son, Jason didn’t have a good track record for this kind of thing. Jason had tried to fight at least one person every year since he’d come to live with Bruce. There were private schools, sure, but they were expensive, and it would mean Jason wouldn’t be going to school with his brother anymore.

“You’re kidding me, right?” Hal said, interrupting Bruce’s train of thought.

Bruce glanced over at Hal and was surprised to see that Hal’s ire was directed at him this time, not at the principal.

“You’re just going to accept this bullshit?” Hal asked him.

“Mr. Jordan,” said Principal Doe, his tone admonishing.

“I don’t like it, but I don’t see how yelling about it is going to achieve anything,” Bruce said.

“You’re not going to stand up for them even a little bit? Where’s this other student?” Hal asked. “How come he isn’t here? Jason and Kyle defend this girl, and this is the thanks they get for trying to do the right thing—”

Principal Doe interrupted this tirade by saying, “I feel I should remind you that Kyle is a new student here, Mr. Jordan. I hope that this incident is not going to be indicative of how the rest of the school year will go.”

“Are the boys at this school allowed to say whatever they want about their female classmates?” Hal asked. “Is every teacher in this building going to be as useless and backwards as you?”

“I’m taking Jason home,” Bruce said, raising his voice.

Principal Doe looked from Hal to Bruce and smiled, saying, “We will be happy to have him back on Thursday.”

Bruce didn’t respond to this, but turned and left the office.

Jason was messing with the strap of his backpack and Kyle still had one leg propped up on his knee when Bruce came out of the principal’s office, and they both jumped a bit when Bruce opened the door. From that angle, Bruce could see that the sole of Kyle’s shoe was coming apart, a bit of sock peeking through the rubber. 

“Jason, come on,” Bruce said.

He breezed past them and Duela at the desk, expecting to be followed. Jason didn’t say anything, but Bruce heard him scramble to get up.

Bruce didn’t turn around as he walked down the long hallway to the front entrance. He still didn’t turn around as he went out the main doors. Jason was close at his heels, tennis shoes slapping against the tile and then the concrete.

Bruce made a beeline for his car, which was parked in one of the designated spots for visitors. As he approached, Bruce saw that Hal’s motorcycle was nearby, one empty space left between their two vehicles.

They’d almost reached the car when Bruce heard the school doors burst open again, and someone yelled, “Hey!”

Bruce stopped and turned around in the middle of the school’s empty driveway. Jason, who had been following close behind Bruce, stopped and turned too to watch as Hal and Kyle made their way toward them.

“Get in the car, Jason,” Bruce said.

“But—”

Bruce shoved the keys into Jason’s hands and said, “Go get in the car.”

Jason turned and went to the car. Though Bruce didn’t turn, he heard Jason get inside and slam the car door behind him.

Kyle broke off from Hal as Hal approached Bruce, hanging back by the flagpole. When Hal was close enough, Bruce said, “What do you want?”

“What was that?” Hal asked him, his face incredulous. “That asshole is punishing Jason and Kyle for standing up for a girl and the little prick who insulted her in the first place doesn’t even get a slap on the wrist!”

“You heard everything Principal Doe said just as well as I did,” Bruce said, tone calm and even. “I don’t like it, but there’s not anything I can do to change it.”

“You could have argued!” Hal said, as furious at Bruce now as he had been at the principal moments before. “You just stood there!”

“I already communicated my opinions to Principal Doe before you arrived. Also, I’ve had meetings like this with Principal Doe before, so I know when there’s nothing I can do to change his mind.”

“Trying to do the right thing sure isn’t worth much around here, is it? Not only is the other kid not even in trouble—”

“Kyle and Jason’s hearts might have been in the right place, but engaging in a physical fight doesn’t fix problems. I don’t like it that the other student is getting away with whatever it was that he said, but it doesn’t change the fact that Jason and Kyle were still fighting,” Bruce said.

“What kind of lesson are they getting from this punishment?” Hal asked. “Did you think about that? What about the next time they hear somebody say something offensive? Do you want Jason and Kyle to let it go and walk away?”

At this, Bruce’s temper finally snapped.

He got into Hal’s face and said, “What I want is for my son, who has problems with aggression, to not resort to physical violence every time he disagrees with someone. What you decide to teach Kyle about how to deal with people he disagrees with is your business, but I would appreciate it if you didn’t question the way that I am trying to raise my son.”

Hal’s mouth opened, then snapped shut. He still looked furious, but Bruce was finished talking about this.

Without another word, Bruce turned around and headed for the car. The driver’s side door was open, so Bruce climbed inside and pulled the it shut after him with a sharp yank.

Jason was sitting in the passenger seat, one of his feet bobbing against the floor. Bruce glanced at him, but Jason didn’t meet his eye, instead glaring at the dashboard. Bruce wondered how much Jason had heard, if anything, but was still too furious to trust himself to speak.

He started the car. Silently, Bruce backed out of the parking spot and pulled out of the school’s driveway.

He and Jason didn’t talk at all the whole way back to the house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "John Doe" is the name Joker has in the Telltale video games, just in case Principal Doe being Joker was unclear. 
> 
> Have a great Saturday and thanks for reading!


	10. Chapter 10

Jason was sitting up on the counter while Bruce was working in the laundry room, bumping his heel against the cabinet. The noise was creating a rhythmic pounding in Bruce’s head. _Thump_ , _thump_ , _thump, thump_.

“Kyle’s not grounded,” Jason said. 

“That’s nice for Kyle,” Bruce told him. He didn’t bother to look up at Jason as he transferred clothes from the washing machine into the dryer.

“He didn’t even get grounded last weekend. Hal thinks that what Kyle and I did was a good thing and that it’s garbage we got in trouble,” Jason said. 

_Thump_ , _thump_. Bruce stood up and closed the dryer door. He started it.

“He also thinks Kyle and I should be encouraged to stand up for people, not handed out suspensions,” Jason said.

Bruce still didn’t reply. Instead, he moved on to the next hamper and began loading the washing machine. Jason’s heel thumped on as he was busy.

Though Jason was no longer suspended and had been allowed to return to his classes, that didn’t mean that he was out of trouble at home. Jason’s phone was only returned to him so that he could take it with him to school, and while at home, Bruce kept him busy with chores. He was forbidden from seeing Kyle.

Bruce couldn’t do anything about Jason seeing Kyle at school, however, so that meant Bruce had to hear all about what Hal thought about Kyle and Jason’s fight. For over a week now, Bruce had been listening to this endless complaining. _Hal thinks we did something good. When are you going to unground me? Kyle’s not grounded. How come Kyle’s not grounded but I am? Hal says that Principal Doe is an idiot._ Jason had turned into the world’s most obnoxious broken record.

“Are you just going to ignore me?” Jason asked. His heel thumped against the cabinet again.

“We’ve had this conversation, what? A hundred times now?” Bruce said. “At least I didn’t ground you from reading this time. Why don’t you go read a book?”

“Because I’m tired of reading. I’ve done nothing but read and do homework and clean since the fight and I’m going out of my mind. I want to go see Kyle,” Jason said.

“You should’ve thought about how much it would suck to not see Kyle before you got into another fight.”

Jason ignored this and asked, “When are you going to unground me? If you would at least tell me that would be something, but I’m going crazy not knowing how much longer I have to be grounded.”

“I can relate. I would like to know when you’re going to stop hitting everyone you don’t like, for example.” 

Jason’s foot thumped harder against the cabinet. _Thump_ , _thump_ , _thump_. Bruce resisted the temptation to reach out and grab his ankle to stop him.

“There’s plenty of people I don’t like that I’ve never hit,” Jason said. 

“Maybe I’ll sign you up for some yoga classes. Or meditation sessions. I’ve read that people with anger problems can use yoga and meditation to help them channel and accept their frustration,” Bruce said.

“I’m not going to _meditation sessions_ ,” Jason said, his tone snide.

“Well, then I’m not sure how else to help you,” Bruce said, shrugging.

He finished putting the next load of dirty laundry into the washing machine, then poured some detergent in and started the cycle. Task complete, he turned and began to walk out of the room. 

“Where are you going?” Jason called after him.

“Out,” Bruce told him, then stopped and turned to add, “If you need anything tonight, take it up with Alfred. I will be busy this afternoon.” 

* * *

The Gotham Rogues were in the playoffs with FC Central City, so that afternoon, Bruce went to watch the game with Clark and Diana. Bruce was much more of a hockey fan than a soccer fan, but it was always nice to spend time with some of the neighbors he liked best.

Also, he appreciated being able to get out of the house. He badly needed a break from Jason’s endless complaining.

Close to the end of the first half, Diana got up and went to get another beer. Clark and Bruce, left behind, got caught up in the activity of the game.

Then Clark said, “So.”

He hadn’t even said anything else yet, and Bruce was already tired. 

“Vivian told me that you never got back to her,” Clark said. 

Bruce didn’t take his eyes off the field. He’d meant to text Vivian, really. But then Jason and Kyle got into their fight, and Bruce was so caught up in the aftermath that he completely forgot to reschedule for Tuesday. He wouldn’t have been free on Tuesday anyway, as it turned out, because he had to stay home and deal with Jason. 

“There’s a lot going on right now, as I’m sure you already know,” Bruce said.

Clark was enough of a reporter to love gossip. If he hadn’t heard about Jason and Kyle’s fight from Hal or from someone who’d talked to Hal, then he’d probably heard it from Conner via Tim. 

“I did hear,” Clark said. “How’s Jason doing?” 

“He’s fine,” Bruce said. 

At that point, Diana returned with her beer and a bucket of popcorn. More than one person turned to stare as she passed, but Diana didn’t seem to notice the attention. She slid back into her seat on Bruce’s other side. 

“What did I miss?” she asked. 

“Central City just scored another goal,” Bruce told her. She offered the bucket of popcorn to him and Bruce took a handful.

“What about Kyle? He doing ok?” Clark asked. 

“I assume so,” Bruce said. “I’m still giving him rides to and from school, and he doesn’t seem to be any worse for wear.” 

Diana frowned, glancing between Clark and Bruce and said, “What happened?” 

“Kyle and Jason got into a fight at school,” Bruce told her. Diana’s eyes widened in alarm, so Bruce added quickly, “Not with each other. With some other kid. Apparently he said something offensive and Jason and Kyle didn’t like it, so they fought him.” 

“Conner told me it was over a girl,” Clark said, confused. 

“Well, technically yes,” Bruce said. 

Clark just looked more confused, and Diana’s expression was puzzled as well, so Bruce found himself telling them everything. He included the bit about how Jason was one strike away from getting expelled. He did feel a little guilty about this, but out of everyone in the neighborhood, Bruce trusted Clark and Diana not to go blabbing about his son’s personal business.

He even found himself telling Clark and Diana about his argument with Hal in the parking lot. In particular, he went over the things Hal said about the reprimand setting a bad precedent. 

“Now Kyle’s not grounded and Jason won’t stop complaining. Hal’s on their side, so that makes me the bad guy,” Bruce said. “The longer Jason goes on being grounded, the more annoyed he gets, but I don’t know what else to do to get through to him. Hal taking his and Kyle’s side is only fanning the flame.” 

“As you said, it’s not really the same for Jason as it is for Kyle,” Diana said, brow furrowing as she frowned. “If Jason gets into another fight, he’ll be expelled. Hal doesn’t have to worry about that quite yet, so it is easy for him to take Kyle’s side.”

“Well...yes, but he’s not completely wrong, either,” Clark said. Bruce shot him a look, and Clark opened his mouth to go on, but Diana spoke first. 

“Violence should never be a first resort. Bruce is right that Jason needs to learn how to handle his disputes without fighting,” Diana said. 

“You’re right, and I’m not saying Hal is completely right, because he isn’t,” Clark said. “I just mean that the principal’s decision does send the message that Jason and Kyle should keep their heads down and ignore it when their classmates are being jerks.” 

“I agree. The principal should have worked harder to deduce what really happened between the boys before passing judgement. If you ask me, he is the one really in the wrong, not you or Hal,” Diana said. 

“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean,” Clark said, nodding at her.

Bruce didn’t say anything, because he was lost in thought. He hadn’t really allowed himself to think about Hal or the things Hal had said in the parking lot at the school. But now that he was thinking about it, he found that he was surprised by Hal’s reaction. Hal had been furious with the principal for not listening to Kyle and Jason. Bruce didn’t know what kind of reaction he would’ve expected out of Hal, but he definitely hadn’t been expecting Hal to argue about it as vehemently as he had.

“Well, parenting is complicated, but at least one thing is certain,” Clark said. 

Bruce looked over at him and said, “What?” 

“He’s a good kid. Jason,” Clark said. “Prickly, and it’s buried deep down, but his heart is in the right place.” 

“I agree. He is a good boy,” Diana said, smiling at Bruce. 

As if silently agreeing the conversation was over, the three of them turned back to focus on the field. Bruce’s train of thought, however, was thoroughly snagged now, and he couldn’t pay attention to much of what was happening for the rest of the game. 

* * *

Bruce found Alfred in the kitchen with Jason when he got home.

Jason was sitting at the table with his arms crossed over his chest, Alfred looking down on him with a disapproving expression on his face. There were pieces of something that appeared to have once been an electronic in a little pile on the table in front of Jason. 

“What’s going on?” Bruce asked.

Alfred turned to Bruce, not uncrossing his arms, and said, “Jason broke his phone.” 

Bruce looked down at Jason and asked, “You broke your phone? You weren’t even supposed to have your phone. How did you get it, and how did it break?” 

Jason eyed Alfred, and he and Bruce’s father had a silent conversation with their eyes. 

“I may have broken into the drawer in your room and gotten it,” Jason said.

Bruce said nothing, but crossed his arms over his chest and kept staring down at him.

“Uh, I called Kyle. And I snuck out. And while Kyle and I were at the park I dropped my phone on the basketball court and it broke,” Jason said.

Bruce eyed the mangled pieces of what had once been Jason’s phone and sighed.

“Get your shoes and get in the car,” Bruce said. 

Jason’s eyebrows shot up in alarm and he said, “Where are we going?” 

“Where do you think we’re going? We have to get you a new phone,” Bruce said. 

“You’re going to get me a new phone?” 

“You can’t not have a phone,” Bruce said. He worried about all of his children way too much to ever let them wander about the world without a way to reach him if they needed to. “I would get you a flip phone if I could. See how you like predictive text.”

Jason said nothing, but got up and followed Bruce to the car. 

He and Jason bickered all the way to the phone store. Then they bickered—albeit in lower tones—the entire time they were at the phone store, still somehow managing to earn a few disgruntled looks from the people at the phone store with them. Then they bickered all the way back to the house.

It wasn’t until they’d almost reached the neighborhood again that Jason finally said, “I’m sorry about my old phone.”

Bruce glanced at him and turned back to the road. 

“Are you sorry for anything else?” he asked Jason. 

“And for sneaking out to hang out with Kyle. But I’m not sorry for fighting that kid at school,” Jason said hotly. “You didn’t hear what he said. If you were there you would’ve been pissed too.” 

“I’m not angry with you for standing up for what you believe in, Jason. I just don’t want you to resort to hitting someone every time someone says something you don’t like.” 

“So you’d rather I do nothing?” Jason asked. 

“You’re one bad mood away from getting expelled. You understand that, right?” Bruce asked him. “School is so important to you. Do you really want to have to leave Kane High, especially now that Kyle is there? Stand up for what you believe in, but next time, use your words, not your fists.” 

Jason didn’t say anything. Bruce glanced at him again and saw that Jason had his hands in the pockets of his jean jacket. He was frowning down at his shoes. 

“Yeah, I get it,” Jason muttered. 

Jason was quiet then. Bruce turned into the neighborhood and went around the bend. As they were coming around the corner, Bruce saw that Hal and Oliver were out on Hal’s driveway, chatting. 

“Am I still grounded?” Jason asked as Bruce pulled into his own driveway and turned off the engine. 

“You are this weekend,” Bruce said. 

Jason brightened a little. 

“And then after that?” 

“I’ll think about it,” Bruce told him. 

Looking slightly less stormy than before, Jason climbed out of the car and went inside. 

Bruce wasn’t quite ready to face the rest of the house yet. He sat there for a minute, absorbing the silence of the car, all the while knowing he couldn’t sit there for too long. Alfred probably had dinner going, and Bruce would be needed to help him clean up. It wasn’t fair to leave Alfred to take care of the kids, especially not since he’d spent so much of the day at the soccer game.

With that in mind, Bruce got out of the car, hitting the button on the fob to lock it behind him. But as he went around the hood toward the door, he heard Oliver yell, “Hey! Bruce!”

Bruce, immediately wary, turned and looked over in Oliver’s direction. Oliver was waving him over. 

Bruce didn’t want to go next door. He hadn’t seen Hal since their disagreement in the parking lot at the high school, and after having to listen to Jason complain about how Hal didn’t ground Kyle for fighting, he wasn’t in the mood to see Hal now. Unless he was outright rude and ignored Oliver, however, he didn’t see a way out of it. 

So Bruce turned and headed across the lawn to join Oliver and Hal. Oliver was wearing his usual dark green jacket and black pants, but Hal was wearing tennis shoes, leggings, and a light green t-shirt, as if he’d been on his way to a workout before getting sidetracked by Oliver. 

“Hello, Oliver,” Bruce said, then shot a glance at Hal and said, “Hal.” 

“Bruce,” Hal said. From the look on his face, he wasn’t any happier about Bruce being called over than Bruce was. 

“We were just talking about our kids, Bruce,” Oliver said, either not noticing or choosing to ignore the frostiness between him and Hal. 

“Our kids?” Bruce said, looking to Oliver. 

“Yes, they’re all friends now. Weird, right?” Oliver said. 

“What are you talking about?” 

“Connor went to the park with Jason and Kyle today,” Oliver explained.

Bruce frowned. Jason hadn’t mentioned anything about Connor being at the park too when he broke his phone, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t true. It had probably just slipped his mind.

As he thought about it, Bruce supposed it was a good thing if Connor and Jason were getting along, even if Jason had been disobeying him while they were doing so.

“Right. That’s good news,” Bruce said, nodding.

Bruce happened to glance over at Hal then and saw that Hal was staring at him. His arms were crossed over his chest, and he was gazing at Bruce as if Bruce was something disgusting he’d found stuck to his shoe.

Bruce ignored this and turned back to look at Oliver in time to catch the curious look Oliver’s on his face, but it was wiped away when Oliver noted Bruce’s attention.

“Well, that’s great to hear about the kids,” Bruce said. “I should probably—”

“How’s Jason doing?” Hal asked.

Bruce turned back to look at him and said, “Excuse me?”

“I was just wondering how Jason is doing. Kyle mentioned he’s still grounded because of their fight,” Hal said.

“That’s not really any of your business, is it?” Bruce asked, but at the same time Oliver asked, “Jason and Kyle got into a fight?”

Hal chose to address Oliver instead of Bruce, turning to Oliver to explain, “Jason and Kyle got into it at school with this little dickhead named Roman. He said something nasty about a girl and when Kyle and Jason called him out for it, he just said something even nastier. But the principal claimed that there were no witnesses, so Jason and Kyle got in trouble for instigating the fight and meanwhile the other kid got away scot-free.” 

Bruce’s hackles rose.

“Good for Jason and Kyle for standing up for her. Principal Doe, right?” Oliver asked, and Hal nodded. Oliver made a face and went on, “Yeah, I’m familiar with that asshole. He and I have gotten into it a few times over Roy.”

“Yes, well,” Bruce said, his voice just a bit louder than usual, “the principal’s decision was less than ideal, but fighting isn’t the way to handle disputes either.”

“No one’s saying it is,” Hal said, and Bruce didn’t miss the fact that his voice was suddenly louder as well. “Like I told you last week, I just don’t think it sends a good message when Jason and Kyle are the ones who get handed suspensions while this Roman kid gets to go back to class.”

An ember of anger burned in Bruce’s chest.

“I think it’s fascinating that you keep talking to me as if I disagree with you when I just stated that I too was displeased by the principal’s decision,” Bruce said.

“That principal is a fucking moron,” Hal snapped. “He has no business working with kids.”

“And how exactly do you think any other principal would handle Jason and Kyle fighting?” Bruce asked him. “Fighting is fighting, no matter the reasoning for it. The principal may be an imbecile, but that much, at least, is still true."

“I’d think you’d be even angrier than me, considering that Jason’s punishment was worse than Kyle’s,” Hal said “but no. Jason gets grounded on top of suspended.”

Bruce cocked his head at Hal and said, “I’m not going to stand here and argue with someone who can’t even be bothered to buy his ward a new pair of shoes.”

One of Hal’s eyebrows shot up.

“Excuse me?” Hal said, but Bruce didn’t say anything else, continuing to gaze at Hal with disdain.

After a moment, Hal went on, “Kyle hasn’t said anything to me about his shoes.”

“You can’t wait around for a kid to tell you everything,” Bruce said. “Especially not a kid in a situation like Kyle’s. Sometimes you have to learn to notice what they don’t tell you. If you don’t, then he’s not any better off living with you than he was before.”

Hal visibly bristled. He took a small, almost imperceptible step toward Bruce. Bruce didn’t actually know what kind of situation Kyle had been in before he moved in with Hal, but the little clues he’d picked up from Jason were enough to indicate that it hadn’t been good. 

“Kyle’s way better off with me than he was before,” Hal said. 

Bruce wasn’t convinced, and he didn’t go through any trouble to mask it either. Though Bruce hadn’t said a word, Hal took another step toward Bruce. Bruce didn’t back away.

One of Oliver’s hands shot out and landed on Hal’s rigid shoulder. 

“Bruce, one of your kids is watching us from the window,” Oliver said. 

Bruce finally looked away from Hal and turned back to glance at his house. To his surprise, it wasn’t Tim watching them from the library window, but Duke. He didn’t turn and walk away when Bruce made eye contact with him. He just kept looking, concern furrowing his brow.

Bruce was still angry, but the moment was over, as Oliver had surely intended to end it. Bruce turned back to the two men, ignoring Hal completely when he looked at Oliver and said, “I should be helping Alfred with dinner.”

Without another word, Bruce turned and walked away, leaving Hal and Oliver behind. Bruce didn’t look back as he returned to his home and his waiting family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hal: I CARE ABOUT OUR KIDS MORE  
> Bruce: NO ME
> 
> Btw y'all I recently started reading the New-52 Flash series and I have decided I LOVE the Flash rogues. Unlike the Batman rogues, they don't kill people, and sometimes they team up with Flash whenever he has to fight somebody at lot worse than them. My favorite thing about them though is that every once in a while they'll get mad at each other and be like "I'm done! This crew is over!" and then ten seconds later they're like "nvm we're besties again"


	11. Chapter 11

Storms and a cold front blew in on Sunday night and the nastiness of the weather only served to worsen Bruce’s temperament. Duke never brought up the scene he witnessed through the library window, but it was clear from the way Bruce kept catching the kids eyeing him that stories of it had circulated around the household.

Bruce’s bad mood persisted all throughout Sunday, and he woke early on Monday morning to find that it still hadn’t lifted. Looking through his bedroom window and seeing the trees in the front yard whipping about in the storm did not help his disposition. Still, he got up and got ready to go out for a run anyway, knowing that if he didn’t run his mood would only deteriorate further.

It was so windy outside that the hood of Bruce’s rain jacket wouldn’t stay up. While his arms remained dry, the rest of him got soaked. In spite of his, he resisted the temptation to cut his run short. By the time he got back home he was so cold and wet that his teeth were chattering. The shower he took afterwards did little to warm him up, since the plumber hadn’t fixed what was wrong with his pipes yet. Even dried after the shower, and clad in his thickest sweater, the chill lingered in his bones.

Bruce put his discomfort on the back burner as he helped the kids get ready for school. Tim was up early for a change, but Cassandra glared at him through one narrowed eye when he went downstairs to her basement bedroom and told her to get up. Damian was in a bad mood because Alfred found the turtle he was hiding in his bedroom and told him to put it back outside, and Dick was sulking because Duke was hogging the bathroom. In short, it was a typical morning for his household.

The only kid who kept out of the way that morning was Jason, but this changed about thirty minutes before he and Dick needed to leave for school. Jason came to find Bruce in the kitchen, but stopped on the other end of the table. He didn’t say anything, but instead crossed his arms over his chest and watched as Bruce cleaned.

When it became obvious that no words were forthcoming, Bruce said, “Morning, Jason. Did you have breakfast?”

Jason ignored the question and asked, “Are you going to tell me I have to stop seeing Kyle?”

Bruce shot Jason a frown as he went to scrape some burned remains of the morning’s eggs into the trash.

“You’re still grounded,” Bruce said. “You can’t see him until I’ve ungrounded you, and I still haven’t decided when that will be.”

Jason rolled his eyes and said, “Yeah, I know. That’s not what I’m talking about. Are you going to tell me I can’t be friends with Kyle anymore?”

The question took Bruce aback.

“What on earth are you talking about?” Bruce asked.

“Exactly what I just said. So?”

Bruce stopped what he was doing and looked over at him. He could see that Jason was ready for an argument. His shoulders were bunched, his face stony with anger.

“No,” Bruce told him. “I’m not going to make you stop being friends with Kyle. When have I ever forbidden any of you from being friends with someone?”

“You wouldn’t let Tim be friends with that Lonnie kid,” Jason argued.

“‘That Lonnie kid’ was somebody Tim met on the internet while playing video games. He wanted Tim to come to Gotham so they could meet in person. For all we know, Lonnie is a 40 year-old man. Internet friends are different from your friends in the neighborhood or from school.”

Truthfully, there had been the occasional moment where Bruce had considered forbidding one of his kids from seeing someone again. He hadn’t been happy when Dick decided to date Helena Bertinelli, for example, but he had resisted the temptation to intervene and the relationship had fallen apart anyway. He hoped he never encountered a scenario dire enough that he would have to forbid one of his children from dating or befriending someone.

“If you say so,” Jason said, still sounding doubtful. Then he shrugged and added, “Not like it matters, because I wasn’t going to stop being friends with Kyle anyway.”

“Your defiance is noted, but unnecessary,” Bruce told him. “Can I ask what prompted this anxiety?”

“Duke told me you and Hal were about to beat the shit out of each other Saturday night,” Jason said.

“Language. Hal and I weren’t about to fight.”

Jason raised his eyebrows and muttered, “That’s not what Duke says.”

“Duke should know better than to be spying on me. Everyone in this house is so nosy.” Exasperated, Bruce went back to scraping at the frying pan.

“I’m just saying. Just because you hate Hal’s guts doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t get to see Kyle anymore,” Jason said.

“Do you really think that little of me?” Bruce asked. “Also, I do not hate Hal.”

Jason’s only response to this statement was a loud snort.

“I’m serious,” he said. “I do not hate him and I never have. We got off on the wrong foot and we have had our disagreements, sure, but I don’t hate anyone. Except maybe your principal.”

Jason raised his eyebrows, still disbelieving.

“If you can punch Connor Hawke and still end up befriending him later, then I can disagree with Hal and not hate him,” Bruce said.

Jason’s eyebrows shot up even higher and he said, “Huh?”

“Oliver told me that you went to the park with Kyle and Connor Hawke. What’s that about? I thought you said he was annoying.”

Jason frowned and said, “Kyle likes him. Kyle told me that he’s cool and that if I talked to him I’d see he’s not like I assumed he was.”

“What did you assume he was going to be like?”

Jason offered a small, evasive shrug. “I don’t know. All preachy and constantly lecturing people about stupid shit no one cares about.”

“Language. But he isn’t preachy?” 

Jason looked a little exhausted when he said, “I mean, he is sometimes. But it’s not like he’s judgmental. He just says what he thinks, he doesn’t care if anyone agrees. It’s hard to explain.”

“What did you get so mad at him about in the first place?” Bruce asked him.

“We had a debate in our political science class about gun control. I said I thought that the focus should be on stricter gun laws, not banning guns altogether, but he disagreed and started rambling about nonviolence,” Jason said.

“So you responded by hitting him. Did you think this would be a convincing way to win a debate?” 

“I’m not proud of it,” Jason said, rolling his eyes. “Anyway, I wasn’t really mad about the debate. I messed up on a project in biology and Dr. Isley was being a total hardass like always and wouldn’t let me redo the section I messed up. I was still mad when I got to political science, so I took it out on Connor. I felt bad about it later.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” Bruce said, his tone dry.

Judging from the look that Jason shot him, Bruce was sure that—had he been anyone else and not Jason’s father—Jason would have flipped him off.

“I have a couple of things to say in response to that story you just told me,” Bruce said. “First, guns are terrible and if I ever catch you with one you will be grounded for the rest of your life. Second, I think my point is proven. If you and Connor can somehow worked out your differences, then I can come around and realize Hal’s...not as bad as I may have originally thought that he was.”

Jason snorted again and said, “Whatever. As long as I get to keep being friends with Kyle.” 

Then, having apparently decided the conversation was over, Jason turned and left the kitchen.

* * *

The kids did make it to school on time and as usual, the period between when they were at school and when they needed to be picked up seemed to pass in the chaotic blink of an eye. Fortunately, the rain had let up a little by the time he needed to leave, so Bruce was only sprinkled on instead of drenched as he went from the house to the car.

Nothing about the neighborhood seemed amiss as Bruce was making this journey from house to vehicle, but when he climbed into the driver’s seat and shut the door, a light through the wind shield caught his attention.

Next door, Hal’s garage door was wide open. Most of the garage was covered in a haphazard pile of various furniture and unopened boxes, but Hal and his motorcycle occupied a cleaner section. The bike was leaning on its kickstand, and Hal was crouched down next to it.

Bruce stopped in the action of putting the key into the ignition and stared, not really conscious of the fact that his curiosity was getting the better of him. There was an assortment of other tools scattered around Hal. Oil was streaked all over his jeans and arms, and his expression was determined but frustrated.

Two things were obvious: something was wrong with Hal’s motorcycle, and he had been working on trying to fix whatever was wrong with it for quite a while.

For a moment, Bruce had an insane compulsion to get out of the car and go next door to ask what was wrong. During his younger wandering years, Bruce had spent a stint working in a mechanic’s shop in a small village in France. He didn’t approve of riding motorcycles, but he was familiar with how they worked. He could be of assistance.

The thought was so insane that Bruce had to physically shake it out of his head. Even if Hal needed his help, Hal would not want his help. Also—and this was more important—Bruce should not feel compelled to help him.

With this in mind, Bruce stuck the key into the ignition and started the car. He backed out of the driveway and left the neighborhood without another glance in Hal’s direction.

The parking lot at the high school was successful in distracting Bruce from the subject of Hal’s difficulties. Many of Dick and Jason’s classmates had their own cars, and, in the grand tradition of young drivers, they were reckless enough that Bruce had to be paying close attention while he navigated the parking lot to the usual pickup spot by the tennis court. By the time he reached it, Jason and Dick were already waiting for him, and Kyle was with them. The three boys were all talking together about something, Kyle and Dick laughing as Jason appeared to be complaining about something or someone.

Bruce scanned the boys as he approached in the car, and his eyes caught on something again.

Kyle was wearing a bright green pair of brand new tennis shoes. Bruce had no idea why, but he felt oddly shocked by this. In fact, he was so distracted that he forgot to honk to let the boys know he was there.

Fortunately, Jason eyed the street and caught the sight of the car. He elbowed Dick and nodded toward Bruce, then the three boys were picking their backpacks off the sidewalk and heading to meet him. Dick got in first, then Kyle, and Jason was still telling his story as he climbed into the car last.

“I got up and left because, you know, class is over,” Jason said, pulling the car door shut behind himself. “But Deidre and Nina followed me out of class and tried to corner me before I got to the stairs. Nina starts ripping into me about how I’m always going out of my way to make people look stupid in class and I must be cheating, blah blah blah. So I’m like, how the hell can I be cheating when they’re riddles Mr. Nygma makes up himself? I have as good a chance as anybody at getting the answer.”

Jason hadn’t put on his seatbelt yet. Bruce waited, but Jason was so intent on telling his story that he didn’t notice.

“So I said that I’m not going out of my way to make anyone look stupid. She and Deidre gave the wrong answer, and Mr. Nygma was the one who said so and asked me to answer instead.”

“Jason, seatbelt,” Bruce said.

Jason’s story didn’t lag. He put his seatbelt on as instructed, but otherwise didn’t acknowledge that Bruce had spoken.

“Meanwhile, what I didn’t tell them was that Mr. Nygma followed us all out of the classroom. I guess he was meaning to go to the teacher’s lounge or something, but he stopped when he saw Deidre and Nina corner me. He was just standing there listening to us,” Jason went on.

Jason’s story—which seemed to be about two notorious bullies humiliating themselves in front of their favorite teacher—continued the entire way to the house, and Bruce was weirdly relieved about it.

They drove into the neighborhood and Bruce pulled into his driveway. The light in Hal’s garage was still on and the door still open. Hal hadn’t moved from his spot beside the bike.

“Thanks for the ride, Mr. Wayne,” Kyle said as they were all getting out.

“You’re welcome,” Bruce said.

“See you later, Jason,” Kyle said. He offered Dick a nod, and then he turned and jogged across the front lawn over to Hal’s lot, his feet flashes of bright green in Bruce’s peripheral vision.

Dick went right into the house, but Jason lingered by the car. He was staring at Hal and Kyle’s house.

“What’s wrong with Hal’s bike?” Jason asked.

“I have no idea,” Bruce said.

Jason shrugged it off and went into the house, muttering something about homework as he passed Bruce.

Bruce didn’t know what compelled him to look again. He should have followed his son, minded his own business, left well enough alone.

He did not mind his own business. As he walked up the driveway, he glanced over at Hal’s house again.

Hal was no longer focused on his motorcycle. Instead, he too was staring across the expanse of their yards, and therefore caught Bruce’s attention.

Hal did not nod or offer him a small reflexive smile, as one of the other neighbors might have done. Hal’s expression, when he made eye contact with Bruce, became stony and cold with transparent, unmistakable distaste. Then he looked away, as if even looking at Bruce was a waste of his time.

The conversation Bruce had with Jason that morning came back into his mind as Bruce went into the house.

He’d told Jason that he didn’t hate Hal, and he was telling the truth when he said it. Bruce had disliked Hal a great deal, but Hal had never done anything that Bruce would consider to be truly unforgivable.

But he was seeing now that there was a good chance Hal hated him.

It was a huge, tangled mess, exactly the sort of mess Alfred had been hoping to avoid. Bruce had no idea how to mend it.

* * *

The storm picked back up during dinner, and with it returned that feeling of not being able to get warm. He distracted himself in the usual ways, first with the post-dinner cleanup, then with helping the kids with their nightly homework.

However, once the kids had gone up to their rooms for the night and he was in his own bed, there was nothing to distract himself with anymore. It certainly didn’t help that the old house sometimes howled when it was stormy outside. Alfred and the kids had grown accustomed to it over the years, and usually Bruce didn’t notice it either. That night, however, the storm and the wind raged with an intensity that made the house’s old howling ring in his ears. Bruce could barely sleep thanks to the noise.

The storm finally abated a little around 2 a.m. Bruce drifted off into a light sleep, but was abruptly awoken by the sound of a loud crash only a short while later. 

Bruce sat up, straining to hear. He listened for more noises, but the house was quiet again. He was going to have to investigate regardless.

Bruce climbed out of bed and pulled on a shirt before he left his bedroom.

As he passed by the kids’ rooms, he listened for sounds of stirring. He heard nothing, however, and was grateful that the noise, loud as it had been, didn’t seem to have woken any of them.

The same was not true of Alfred. Bruce ran into his father at the bottom of the stairs. 

“Do you have any idea what that awful sound was?” Alfred asked him.

“I’ll go figure out what it was. You should go back to bed,” Bruce said, slipping past Alfred to pull his shoes on. 

“Are you sure?” Alfred said.

“Yes, of course. The storm has kept me up all night anyway. One of us should be able to get some rest.” 

Alfred looked doubtful, but he assented and turned to head back to his bedroom.

When he was gone, Bruce went to the hall closet to fetch his jacket. He pulled it on as he headed for the backyard, since that was the direction the noise sounded like it had come from.

In fact, as he traveled through the darkened house to the kitchen, he had a terrible premonition that he already knew what that sound had been. He flipped the switch to the back flood light before he opened the door and stepped out onto the porch, and saw at once his hunch had been correct.

The flood light over the back porch was bright enough to illuminate most of the east side of the yard. The east side of the yard was, of course, the side of the yard that met Hal’s lot.

Most of the ancient fence that separated Hal’s yard from Bruce’s yard had finally come down. 

Bruce came down the porch steps to get a closer look at the damage, stopping when he reached the path and the gap where the old gate had been. There were sections of the fence that were still intact, but most of those sections were farther down the fence line, closer to the far end of their lots. Both sections of the fence around where the old gate once was had come down entirely, falling into Bruce’s yard on one side and back into Hal’s on the other. There were a few pickets still intact here and there, but for the most part, it was a gigantic, bowed, flattened mess of sodden wood.

He wasn’t sure how long he stood there staring at it.

Maybe, he thought, he should just pay the fix the damn thing after all and leave Hal out of it. It would be expensive, but at least the fence would be back up. He wouldn’t have to deal with…dealing with Hal.

As soon as this thought crossed his mind, Bruce heard a door open. Once again, Bruce looked across the yard, already knowing what he would see. 

Hal was standing in his own back doorway. As Bruce watched, he went back into the house for a moment to turn on his porch light, then reemerged, shutting his door behind him before he approached the wreck of a fence. 

Hal wasn’t dressed for the rain. He wasn’t even wearing shoes. Though the downpour had passed, it was drizzling again, and Hal wasn’t wearing anything to block it, just a t-shirt and sweatpants. He neared Bruce, eyeing first the broken fence and then Bruce himself. Up close, Bruce could see the reddened mark on his cheek where his face must’ve been pressed into his pillow.

He too stopped at the gap where the old gate had been, but didn’t step over the now imaginary border into Bruce’s yard. There was a long moment where neither of them said anything.

“So you must be happy,” Hal said at last.

Bruce cocked his head and asked, “I beg your pardon?” 

“You were right about the fence needing to be replaced, and well”—Hal shot him a grin that was not the least bit kind—“you seem like the kind of person who enjoys being right.” 

Bruce knew he shouldn’t take the bait, but he was much too sleep-deprived to resist.

“What on earth would make you think I would be happy about any of this?” Bruce asked. He gestured to the places where sections of fence were squashing Alfred’s flowerbeds.

Hal didn’t answer the question. There was a long pause where Bruce glared at him and Hal inspected the wrecked fence and pretended not to notice Bruce was glaring at him.

“Look,” Hal said.

Bruce waited.

“I don’t have the money. Not right now. Especially not after today—yesterday. There’s been some unexpected expenses and—”

Hal broke off suddenly, but Bruce recalled the motorcycle. No doubt there was something wrong with it Hal hadn’t been able to fix.

“It’s not any of your business, but if you expect a new fence to go up next week, well, I’m sorry pal, but you’re in for disappointment.”

Bruce absorbed this for a moment, then cocked an eyebrow and said, “It doesn’t matter. I’ll take care of it.” 

Bruce’s tone was calm and even, but Hal frowned. 

“I can get the money eventually,” Hal said. 

“I said it doesn’t matter,” Bruce told him. 

“It matters to me,” Hal snapped.

“If you want to help pay for the new fence, then I’m happy,” Bruce said, knowing he sounded anything but. “We can pick up the broken pieces this week and work everything else out later. I am more than willing to resolve this as neighbors.”

Hal rolled his eyes. It was the kind of juvenile reaction he got from his children all the time and ignored, but for some reason it was a lot harder to accept it from Hal.

“Are you this contrary all the time? First I say I’ll take care of it, but you don’t like that. Then I say that I’m willing to work with you on this and you don’t like that either,” Bruce said.

“Like I have ever been the problem, Bruce,” Hal said, his voice weary.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

This, apparently, was too much for Hal to take. In an instant he closed the distance between them, getting right into Bruce’s face. He was close enough that Bruce could see a droplet of water drip down the side of his nose as he said, “From the very first day I moved in you’ve been sneering down at me and complaining about everything I do. What’s that about? You hated Uncle Alan so you hate me on principle?”

“I don’t hate you, Hal,” Bruce told him.

Hal went on as if he hadn’t heard him.

“Don’t think I didn’t notice that look you gave me the day Kyle arrived. I know you don’t think I’m fit to be his guardian,” Hal said. 

“Have I ever said anything of the sort?” Bruce asked. 

“Just the other day you were ripping into me over Kyle’s shoes!” 

Bruce was tired and frustrated, but not so tired and frustrated that the guilt couldn’t impact him. The guilt helped, a little. It helped him remember that he’d made a mess of things, and that as the mess maker, it was up to him to set things right, if that was even possible.

“Bringing up Kyle’s shoes in front of Oliver the way that I did was inappropriate,” Bruce said. 

Hal’s eyes narrowed.

“That’s it?” he said, his tone disbelieving. “That’s what you feel bad about, and you’re not even going to say the words ‘I’m sorry’ while you’re at it?”

His eyes were deep brown, a little unfocused from lack of sleep, but canny. Bruce had the sudden uncomfortable thought that Hal was a lot smarter than he had given him credit.

“I won’t say that I’m sorry because I’m not,” Bruce said.

Hal’s eyes sharpened, but Bruce went on before Hal could say anything.

“Kyle has new shoes and he needed them,” Bruce said.

Hal’s expression went from annoyed to furious.

“I can't believe this,” Hal said. “Everyone in the neighborhood talks about what an amazing person you are, and you have them all conned, you sanctimonious piece of—”

“I am not sorry that Kyle has new shoes. However, the way that I have treated you has been unfair. I was unnecessarily harsh and let my first inaccurate judgement of your character get the better of me. I know you don’t like me now because of the way I have acted and I don’t know that there’s anything I can do to change that, however, I hope you will believe me when I say that I am sorry for most of what has transpired between us since you moved into the neighborhood.”

“Most of?” Hal said.

“You did criticize me in front of Oliver as well,” Bruce pointed out. “I can admit that the way that I brought up Kyle’s shoes was indelicate, and I applaud you for standing up for what you believe is right, but your constant criticism of how I deign to raise my son is inappropriate.”

“Is that your way of saying you expect an apology too?”

“I don’t expect anything,” Bruce said.

“Jesus Christ, Bruce. I do not get you.”

“We don’t have to understand each other, or even like each other,” Bruce said. “We just have to be neighbors, and that is all.”

When he reflected on it later, Bruce knew that what happened next happened because of him. If not for him, maybe he and Hal would have walked away from each other, still at odds, but with a better estimation of each other. Maybe they would have taken advantage of their lack of spectators and fought the way they almost did on the street the other day.

What happened instead was that Bruce’s attention slipped for a moment. He looked from Hal’s furious eyes to Hal’s lips and back up again.

It was only an instant, but Hal didn’t miss it. Confusion and then understanding flashed in his eyes, and then Hal closed the small distance between them, grabbed Bruce’s face with both hands, and kissed him.

In a second it was as if they’d always been kissing. Hal’s tongue was in Bruce’s mouth, and both of Bruce’s hands went to Hal’s waist, pulling his body to him, his hands sliding up Hal’s ribcage. Hal’s hands didn’t leave Bruce’s face, instead pulling him closer, pressing his mouth to Bruce’s in a way that was almost painful in its intensity.

Bruce wasn’t sure how much time passed before Hal finally broke the kiss, letting go of Bruce and stepping back as he gasped for air.

Bruce opened his eyes, blinking in confusion. The skin around Hal’s mouth was already red from chafing against Bruce’s evening stubble, and his eyes were very wide, all traces of frustration and anger erased from his expression.

“Oh god,” Hal said. “I—”

Whatever was supposed to come next, Bruce never found out. As Bruce stood there, breathless and recovering from the shock of the kiss, Hal turned around and went straight back into his house.

When he was gone, Bruce stood on the path. He stared at the ruined remains of the broken fence, but didn’t really see it.

Hal had kissed him. This was a huge, terrible mistake.

And, as usual when it came to Hal, it was all Bruce’s fault.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heeeeyyyyy y'all 
> 
> Oof sorry for the long absence between chapters. No, I did not get coronavirus if that is what you are wondering. I am going to ramble about what's going on with me a little bit so sorry in advance T_T
> 
> Basically I have a really shitty boss rn, not in the sense that she's a mean person or anything but in that she's clueless and a huge flake. Last year she began having these mysterious health issues that no doctor can seem to diagnose and she calls in sick and is late CONSTANTLY for things like "I have a headache" and "I didn't get enough sleep." Where I work we're open nights and weekends as well as days and there's not very many people who can cover for her, so for the past year I have essentially had no guarantees that what I think is going to be my free time is going to remain my free time. For obvious reasons, this has all impacted my ability to work on my fics. I have only found the attention span to write this weekend because I'm kind of on leave right now, so my boss isn't allowed to contact me unless its absolutely necessary (although of course she has tried, because she is that clueless). I am going to work on Good Fences while I am still on leave but do not be shocked or dismayed if there are delays with other chapters.
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me and for reading this chapter! I hope you are safe and healthy out there.


	12. Chapter 12

Bruce slept through his alarm clock the next morning.

“Slept through” wasn’t the most accurate way to put it. What Bruce really did was get up and silence the alarm when it went off at 5 a.m. Then he got back into bed and immediately fell back asleep.

He was awoken by Dick knocking on his bedroom door a couple of hours later.

“Dad,” Dick was saying, his voice muffled through the wood. “Alfred told me to come up here and check on you.”

Bruce was already annoyed to be conscious again, but he said, “You can come in.”

Dick opened the door as Bruce rolled over. It was a struggle to open his eyes, but Bruce managed it. Dick walked over to the side of the bed and gazed down at him, head cocked. He said, “Are you sick?”

“No,” Bruce said.

Dick took this news as an invitation. He plopped down on the end of Bruce’s bed, jostling the mattress as he crossed his legs.

“You never sleep in,” Dick said. “Alfred had to make breakfast for us since you weren’t up and he made the vegan breakfast casserole with spinach again. You know, the kind with the fake bacon in it? I thought Tim was going to barf.”

Bruce closed his eyes as he dropped his head back onto the pillow, his only reply a grunt.

“Anyway, he sent me up here to tell you that you have to take me and Jason to school. Unless you’re sick, then Jason and I will walk to school. But we’d rather not because it’s still raining. Also, the fence fell down last night.”

Bruce grunted again.

“Dad, did you hear me? The fence fell down.”

“Yes, I know,” Bruce said. “I heard it when it came down very early this morning and went out to look.”

“Oh,” Dick said, and Bruce didn’t think he was imagining that Dick sounded a little disappointed that he didn’t get to break the news. He recovered fast, however, saying, “Well? Are you going to take us to school or do we have to walk?”

Bruce opened his eyes again and stared at the opposite end of his bedroom. He did not want to get out of bed. He also wasn’t so cruel as to force his children to walk to school in the rain just because he was too busy hiding from reality.

“I’ll meet you downstairs in five minutes,” Bruce said.

Dick breathed a sigh of relief and immediately leapt off the bed. He headed for the hallway, saying, “See you downstairs!” as he passed Bruce. Then he was gone.

Five minutes later, Bruce’s teeth and hair were brushed. He’d also changed out of his pajamas into some jeans and a black turtleneck sweater. He still didn’t feel prepared to deal with the world, but he left his room anyway and headed for the stairs.

Jason was hanging out in the front entryway and looked up when he heard Bruce coming down the steps. He frowned as he took in Bruce’s appearance and asked, “Are you hungover?”

Bruce shot him a disapproving look and said, “You know I don’t keep alcohol in the house.”

“That’s what you say, but maybe that’s just what you want us to think.”

Bruce didn’t have the energy to deal with all of Jason’s…Jason-ness that morning, so he decided not to dignify this with a response. Instead he asked, “Are you ready to go?”

“Have been for ages. Dick’s already in the car and Kyle said he’s on his way.”

Bruce nodded. He pulled on his boots on autopilot. He looked for his keys next and took far too long to remember that Dick had them already. He patted the pocket of his jeans to make sure he had his wallet and phone.

He only froze as he turned toward the front door and took a step in that direction.

Going outside meant…what if Hal was…?

Jason was at the front door. His hand was on the doorknob, but instead of opening it, he turned back toward Bruce and frowned again.

“Dad? Are you coming?” he asked.

“Yes, sorry,” Bruce said. He shook his head as if to shake his anxieties loose, and resumed walking. He couldn’t hide in his house just because Hal might be outside. Hiding would be cowardly, and Bruce didn’t have any reason to hide. Hal was the one who had kissed him, after all.

Somehow this thought did not quite do the job of emboldening him, but he followed Jason outside nonetheless.

A surreptitious scan of the neighborhood revealed that Hal was not outside, and some of the tension left Bruce. Kyle was standing on his front porch, however, and headed their way when he saw Jason and Bruce emerge from the house.

“Hey Mr. Wayne,” Kyle said, nodding at Bruce as he approached.

“Morning, Kyle,” Bruce said.

Jason and Kyle greeted each other and got into the car. Bruce climbed into the driver’s seat, and, to his great relief, was not required to say anything for the entire drive. When they reached the school, Dick mentioned something about heading to practice right after school as he climbed out of the car, and Bruce acknowledged this with a nod. Jason and Kyle were too busy bickering about something to pay any attention to Bruce, and left the car without acknowledging him at all.

He was annoyingly relieved to have this task done. Bruce navigated out of the parking lot and went back home.

As he made his way back to the house, however, some of the tension began to creep back into his body. Weekday mornings were one of the usual times Bruce saw Hal out and about the neighborhood. Maybe it would have been better if he’d seen Hal before he took the kids to school. Hal wouldn’t say anything awkward in front of the kids, surely.

But when Bruce turned into the neighborhood and drove around the bend, he saw that Hal’s driveway was still empty. The house looked abandoned and dark, the blinds and curtains all shut for once, and again Bruce was relieved, and annoyed at himself for being so relieved.

He went back into the house.

* * *

Although Bruce badly wanted to, he did not go back upstairs to sleep some more. Instead he showered, thought about shaving but ultimately didn’t, and went downstairs for a quick breakfast. He found that Dick hadn’t been wrong about Alfred’s vegan breakfast casserole, and threw most of his portion out.

Then Bruce went to work.

He began working on a series of household tasks he never quite seemed to find the time to get to. He painted over the scuffs on the walls in Tim and Duke’s bedroom first, but the task didn’t take as long as he was expecting. So he went to the library and fixed a few broken shelves, but that didn’t take him long either. He went to the garage and found the caulk after that, and spent the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon re-caulking around the downstairs bathtub.

It was after 2 by the time he was done, and he was a little woozy with hunger as he returned the caulk and tools to the garage.

The kitchen was closest to the garage, so that was where Bruce went. He had enough energy to pull one of the chairs out from under the table and sit down, and didn’t even realize he’d zoned out until Alfred was suddenly setting a teacup and a sandwich down in front of him.

“Oh,” Bruce said, puzzled as he looked from the food and tea up to Alfred. “Thank you, Alfred.”

“You’re welcome,” Alfred said.

Bruce went for the tea first, since that seemed like it would take less energy. He downed the whole cup in a single, burning gulp.

In response to this, Alfred went to the counter and grabbed the teapot, which he set in front of Bruce. Bruce muttered his thanks as he poured another cup of tea.

“I must say I am surprised that you have spent so much time in the house today,” Alfred said. “I thought for sure that you would spend the day out in the backyard dealing with the wreckage of the old fence.”

Bruce downed his second cup of tea in the same fashion as the first, then set the teacup back down on the saucer before he looked back up at his father.

“It’s still raining,” Bruce told him.

Alfred cocked his head, giving Bruce a once over.

“You haven’t shaved. And you weren’t out of bed this morning to make breakfast for the children,” Alfred said.

Bruce picked up the sandwich. He said, “I didn’t get much sleep last night because of the storm,” and then he took a bite.

“I see,” Alfred said, his tone more curious than accepting.

Bruce was saved from having to respond because he was too busy chewing.

“Well, I admit I have spent most of the day fretting about the situation,” Alfred said.

Alfred waited until Bruce was done chewing, because he was an evil mastermind.

“What for?” Bruce asked.

“Why, isn’t it obvious?” Alfred asked. “You and Mr. Jordan will have to have a conversation about finances. I can only hope that it will end without bloodshed.”

Bruce had been about to take another bite of the sandwich, but shot Alfred an annoyed look instead. Alfred saw the look, but did not appear to be in any way cowed by it.

If only Alfred knew that he and Hal already had the conversation—and that it hadn’t ended in bloodshed at all. But of course Bruce would never tell him what _really_ happened.

“Hal and I already talked about it,” Bruce said.

Alfred’s eyebrows shot up. “Is that so? When?”

“Last night, after the fence fell down. He heard it too and he came out to see what happened,” Bruce said.

“And what did he say?”

Bruce thought it was oddly rude of Alfred to make him lunch and then stand there interrogating him so that he couldn’t eat it.

“We’re going to go half and half on the new fence.”

“What about the gate? You did say that you wanted it taken down, however, now that Jason and Kyle have become friends I could see the value in continuing to have a gate,” Alfred said.

Alfred’s gaze was expectant, but Bruce wasn’t in the mood to have a conversation about the damn gate.

He told Alfred, “We didn’t talk through all the details yet. It was the middle of the night and we were both tired. Anyway, we’ll have time to get it all worked out because Hal can’t afford it right now. He didn’t say exactly what it is that’s going on, but I think there’s something wrong with his motorcycle.”

“What about the old fence?” Alfred asked.

“What about it?”

“What about it?” Alfred repeated, astonished. “It’s a hazard and it’s squashing my mums. Did you and Mr. Jordan discuss when you’re going to clean up the backyards?”

They hadn’t discussed it. He and Hal had been too busy arguing—and then kissing—to talk through almost anything of actual importance.

“Like I said, it was late,” Bruce said cagily.

“Hmm,” Alfred said. “And I am sure that you remained on task and did not bring up inappropriate topics that are none of your business.”

Abruptly, Bruce decided that he was done with the conversation. Instead of responding, he ate another bite of his sandwich.

But it seemed that Alfred was also finished. He began humming one of his favorite classical pieces under his breath as he went over to the refrigerator. Then, as Bruce ate, Alfred narrated out loud about what he was planning to make for the kids for dinner and whether or not they had enough ingredients for other meals he was planning for the rest of the week. Bruce knew that he should offer to make dinner since he’d fallen down on his morning duty of making breakfast for the kids, but he was still too listless to even entertain the idea of cooking.

While Alfred was still talking, Bruce turned and looked over his shoulder through glass panes of the back door. It was cloudy and dark outside, but not so cloudy and dark that Bruce wasn’t able to see the pathetic remains of the old fence. He really would have to get it all cleaned up soon. Alfred was right; it was a hazard. There could be nails or splinters exposed and one of the kids could get hurt.

It occurred to Bruce that he’d spent the entire day avoiding even looking at the backyard. But it wasn’t the backyard he was avoiding, not really. He was avoiding Hal. But unless Hal randomly decided to move out of the neighborhood, Bruce would have to see and talk to Hal again. They would have to discuss…well. There were many things they needed to discuss.

“…and I assume that Jason will not care for it, but it seems healthier than the alternative. Don’t you agree?” Alfred was saying.

“What?” Bruce said.

“Merciful heavens, Bruce, your mind really is in the clouds today,” Alfred said. “Are you ill?”

“I’m not sick,” Bruce said.

He finished his sandwich.

* * *

Bruce did not get to the fence that day, or the next, or the day after that. Bruce didn’t see Hal either. On the first day, this seemed like a coincidence. On the second, it was suspicious. By the third, Bruce was absolutely certain that Hal was avoiding him.

Somehow, the knowledge that Hal was avoiding him helped, and Bruce found that he was able to return to life-almost-as-normal. Of course, by day two he was already back to getting up early. But by day three he no longer felt compelled to glance around the neighborhood, checking to make sure Hal wasn’t around. This was preferable. In a way, it was almost a relief that Hal was avoiding him.

He didn’t see Hal for a solid week.

Whatever was wrong with the motorcycle must never have been fixed, because Bruce no longer heard the loud roaring of the engine as Hal left for work in the morning and returned in the evening. Bruce still drove Kyle to and from school, and if Kyle had noticed that Hal was behaving oddly, he never mentioned it. Even the blinds in Hal’s bedroom had finally been shut. It was as if Hal had ceased to exist.

But of course, Hal had not ceased to exist. He was still around—he just didn’t want to see or talk to Bruce.

Slowly, what Bruce had found comforting quietly began to eat him alive.

By the Wednesday the following week, Bruce was so agitated that he could hardly sit still for ten minutes. He’d spent the weekend and the first half of the week speeding through a long list of household tasks that had been at the back of his mind for months. He didn’t even realize that his behavior was putting the rest of the family on edge until Alfred finally confronted him that evening after dinner.

“Could you please stop that?” Alfred asked.

Bruce paused and turned around, looking down at Alfred. They were in the library. Bruce was in the middle of going through the contents of the bookshelves, searching for old books that no one in the family was interested in anymore.

“Excuse me?” Bruce said.

“I am trying to enjoy a book and I cannot focus with you tossing things about in this fashion,” Alfred said.

“I am not tossing things,” Bruce said.

“I implore you,” Alfred said, looking long-suffering as he directed his attention back down to his reading. “Find some other task in some other room. Or better yet, sit down and relax. I don’t know what has gotten into you lately, but watching you these past few days has been an exhausting experience. All this energy expended, but you still have not even approached the fence. It makes no sense at all to me.”

Bruce stared down at Alfred, but Alfred did not look up from his book again.

Bruce half-turned back toward the bookcase, then glanced into the box where he was putting the books he intended to donate. He didn’t want to stop what he was doing, but if Alfred had noticed that something was the matter with him…

Bruce did not let his mind complete that thought. Instead, he walked around the box and out of the library without a backwards glance. If Alfred wanted him to work on the old fence, then fine. Bruce would work on the old fence.

He put on his thickest work gloves and his boots before heading outside. It was dark out already, but the back porch light illuminated enough of the wreckage so Bruce could see what he was doing.

Bruce got to work without ceremony, starting with the sections of fence that were crushing Alfred’s flowerbeds.

Once he’d actually begun the task, he could see that he really had left it for too long. The flowers under the broken sections of fence were squashed and bent. Bruce didn’t know much about flowers, but he doubted any of them would survive. The shrubs were in better shape, but they too were flattened and had crushed branches. Alfred was not going to be happy.

Soon, all of Bruce’s attention was pulled into the physical labor. He forgot about Alfred. He forgot about Hal. He thought that it would bother him to be able to see Hal’s weedy lawn next to his own immaculate one, but all of the rain had done Hal’s plants some favors. Also, it wasn’t as cluttered with junk as Bruce seemed to recall it being in his head.

Bruce was so absorbed in this task that he didn’t even think about it when there was the sound of a door opening. He assumed it was Alfred or one of the kids coming to check on him. It was only when he heard the stomp of footprints that were much too heavy to be Alfred’s that Bruce’s veins iced over.

Hal’s boots appeared in Bruce’s peripheral vision, then his legs. Hal stopped on the other end of a broken fence panel, not six feet from him.

“I thought that we agreed to work on cleaning up the fence together,” Hal said.

Bruce looked up at him and saw that Hal looked as handsome as ever. His hair was tousled in that effortless movie star way; his clothing casual as usual, but selected to best highlight his fit form.

For some reason, Bruce was suddenly furious to see him.

It must’ve shown on Bruce’s face, because Hal looked away and said, “Jesus, if looks could kill.”

Bruce turned away from him.

Hal didn’t leave, but there was a long pause before he spoke again.

“So, uh, about the other day,” Hal said.

Bruce did not acknowledge him. He was pulling panels of fence apart with a hammer so that the rubble could be transported more easily, and he was happy to focus on his this rather than Hal.

“I assume that you didn’t find it, you know, disgusting, since you didn’t push me away and start screaming or anything,” Hal said. “But I did sort of…uh, lay it on you without checking to make sure that was fine, and some people think that’s pretty rude. So if I crossed a line I shouldn’t have, I am sorry about that.”

His meaning sank in, and Bruce looked back up at him.

“You’re apologizing for kissing me?” Bruce asked him.

Hal’s eyes did a quick sweep of Bruce’s yard, as if checking for spectators.

“Yes,” Hal said.

For some reason this caught Bruce off guard. On the rare occasions that he stopped long enough to be able to think about the kiss, he’d fixated on how it was his fault. He hadn’t considered that Hal would think he was angry about it.

“No, Hal,” Bruce told him. “I didn’t find it disgusting or offensive. We don’t get along, but you are physically attractive and I am bisexual.”

Hal’s eyes widened. All he seemed to be able to say to that was, “Ah, ok.”

Bruce turned back to what he was doing.

“I am too,” Hal said. Bruce didn’t really understand what he meant, but before he had to ask, Hal added, “I mean, not that that’s relevant. Actually I guess I don’t have to explain to you that I’m attracted to men, do I?”

Hal seemed unnecessarily wound up.

“No, you don’t have to explain it to me,” Bruce told him. “Also, I already knew you were bisexual.”

Hal frowned, cocking his head as he said, “You did?”

“Yes.”

“How? Did Ollie tell you?”

“You don't shut your blinds when you have dates over,” Bruce said.

“Have you been watching me?” Hal’s tone was alarmed, and Bruce shot him a disgusted look.

“No, I do not watch you. I close my blinds when you bring a date home because I’m a decent human being,” Bruce told him. 

“Hey, I’m decent.”

Bruce turned away and began wrenching out another nail.

“Off topic, I get it,” Hal said. “Where were we?”

Bruce didn’t say anything, since Hal seemed to be talking to himself.

“Right, so I’ve been thinking about last week, and I feel like it would probably be the smartest choice if you and I decided to forget that it happened,” Hal said.

Bruce did not hesitate in his work, and neither did he look at Hal. He needed a moment to gather his thoughts.

This wasn’t so different from what he himself had been thinking, on those rare occasions when he allowed himself to think about it. He and Hal barely knew each other, and in the short time they’d been acquainted they had spent most of their time not getting along. Not long before making out in the backyard, they almost gotten into a fistfight in the street in front of the whole neighborhood. If anything else happened between him and Hal, it could end in a spectacular disaster, and then where would they be? Still neighbors, at least until one of them decided to move away. It would take nothing short of an actual disaster to prompt Bruce to leave his house, which meant that the leaving would have to be Hal’s doing. Hal was absolutely right. Anything other than forgetting the kiss was a terrible idea.

The problem was, Bruce had severe doubts that forgetting would work. He, perhaps, had the resolve to move past it and carry on as if it hadn’t happened, if that was what was needed. But did Hal? He supposed that depended upon Hal. On how Hal had felt about the kiss, and whether or not he was tempted to repeat it.

After a longer pause than Bruce would’ve liked, he finally said, “You’re right. We should forget it happened.”

Hal let out a sigh of relief. That sigh made Bruce’s insides twist, but the next moment, Bruce’s resolve hardened. If it hadn’t been obvious before that Hal would do just about anything to get out of dealing with Bruce, it was obvious now. He couldn’t get wrapped up in inconvenient feelings for someone who didn’t want to deal with him.

“Good! I mean, I’m glad you agree. And you know what, maybe this is a good thing. It’s a chance for us to uh, start over,” Hal said.

Bruce looked up at him, confused.

“Start over in what way?”

“Well, we got off on the wrong foot, right?” Hal said. “If we’re already pretending that certain things didn’t happen, then why not forget it all and agree to a truce?”

“A truce,” Bruce said.

“Don’t tell me you’ve enjoyed this glaring at each other from across the yard thing that we have going on currently.”

Bruce thought about it, then shook his head.

“See?” Hal said. “So, we forget it. All of it. From now on, we’ll just be normal neighbors who can have a conversation without fighting about anything.”

There was no way Alfred and the kids—not to mention the other neighbors, who were all far nosier than they had any right to be—wouldn’t be curious if his and Hal’s relationship suddenly mutated overnight. But for some reason, Bruce found himself nodding anyway.

“Fine,” Bruce said, hoping his doubt wasn’t evident in his tone. “We’ll start over.”

“Great,” Hal said.

He did sound genuinely relieved. Bruce wished he shared Hal’s certainty that it would work.

“So, uh, not to criticize your methods, but why are you doing this when it’s dark outside?” Hal said.

“I was planning on stopping right around when you came outside,” Bruce lied.

“Well, I can help, but I’ve got work during the week. You’ll have to wait until Saturday if you want me to chip in.”

“I’ll need to pick up anything that’s crushing Alfred’s flowers, but the rest can wait until then,” Bruce said.

He let go of one of the fence panels and stood up, suddenly eager to be inside and away from Hal. He tucked the hammer under his arm and brushed his work gloves together to get all the mud and debris off.

When Bruce looked back over at Hal, he found that Hal was staring at him.

“Is something wrong?” Bruce said.

Hal’s blank expression morphed into a look of confusion, and he said, “Huh?”

“You were staring,” Bruce said.

“Oh,” Hal said. “Just got lost in thought for a minute.”

“Right,” Bruce said, not quite believing him. “Saturday at what time?”

“Morning I guess? Around 10 would be a good time for me.”

It was a little later in the morning than Bruce would’ve liked. But he and Hal were supposed to be getting along, so, instead of arguing, Bruce simply nodded as he walked around the pile of loose fence pickets he’d been slowly building.

“Well, I’m going to head in for the night. Enjoy your evening,” Bruce told him. 

“Right,” Hal said. “You too.”

Hal nodded at him and turned, leaving Bruce and the mess of the old fence behind.

Bruce did not watch him go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will Hal be tempted to repeat the kiss? stay tuned to find out 
> 
> Thank you for your comments on the last chapter. I'm glad y'all enjoyed the kiss! Also, thank you for your kind words about my shitty boss. Lately I feel like I'm just grateful to technically still have a job, even if my boss is shitty. I hope that quarantine isn't treating you too bad out there and that you're safe and healthy.


	13. Chapter 13

Bruce and Hal did pick up the rest of the fence the following Saturday, and it was an uneventful affair.

They didn’t talk much while they worked except about the task itself, but they managed to be civil with one another the entire time. Alfred used bringing them lunch at noon as an excuse to check on them, and happened to interrupt them when they were discussing the logistics of the new fence. It was an ordinary, benign discussion, and neither Hal nor Bruce raised their voice a single time. Alfred went back into the house looking a little puzzled, and Bruce couldn’t help but feel a little smug about that.

Life more or less returned to the routine Bruce was familiar with after that weekend. He took the kids to school, did chores, and ran errands. He got up early for his morning runs and made breakfast for the kids. If he saw Hal, it was often in the morning as he was leaving to take the boys to the high school. He and Hal would nod at each other, or wave, but it was rare that they spoke to one another. This was fine with Bruce. There was peace in the neighborhood, and all was well. It was a relief to have life go back to normal at long last.

* * *

Then again, this was precisely the problem: everything was not really normal.

Bruce had always prided himself on his restraint. If something—or someone—was bad for him, he’d never had a problem moving on before. But for some reason Bruce couldn’t quite grasp, he still found his mind wandering back to Hal at random and inopportune times.

Of course, he never thought about Hal on purpose. He’d be folding the laundry and realize that he’d been wondering if Hal ever got his motorcycle fixed. Or he’d be reading in bed at night and zone out, only to come back to himself sometime later and find he’d been thinking about the kiss again, and whether or not it was actually a good kiss, or if his memory was warping reality.

One thing was obvious: he needed to find a way to move on. He thought about calling Vivian again, but it didn’t take him long to decide against this. After all, he reasoned, if he was really interested in Vivian then he never would have gotten so distracted by what happened with Hal. He wasn’t even sure if Vivian was interested in hearing from him again.

It was pure coincidence that Vivian happened to come up a couple of days later.

“So I need to tell you something,” Clark said.

It was Thursday morning and they were out on their usual run. They’d been running side by side in companionable silence for some time, which had suited Bruce just fine. Clark’s tone was too serious to ignore, however.

“Oh?” he said, prompting Clark to go on.

“It’s about Vivian. Earlier this week I was chatting with her and I kind of found out that she got back together with her ex-wife,” Clark said.

Bruce shot Clark a startled look.

“Her ex-wife? I didn’t know there was an ex-wife,” Bruce said.

Clark threw his hands up in exasperation. “Neither did I! Apparently they split back in August, but then Vivian ran into her at the grocery store a couple of weeks ago. They got to talking and realized how much they missed each other and now they’re dating again. Trying to see if they’re able to move past their issues or something.”

Bruce absorbed this information in stunned silence. He wasn’t angry, or offended. He didn’t think he had any right to be.

“Bruce, I swear I never would’ve pushed you so hard to go out with her if I’d known any of this,” Clark said.

Bruce offered him a wry grin and said, “I’m not upset. To be completely honest with you, I don’t think she and I were really that interested in each other. We went on one date, then our next date fell through, and then we stopped talking to each other altogether.”

Because it hadn’t been just Bruce who’d stopped talking to her, he realized now. Vivian had also let communication between them fizzle out.

Clark seemed relieved.

“Well, I still don’t think it’s a good idea for you to give up on dating, but I’m glad you’re not upset about Vivian,” Clark said.

Bruce was mildly offended.

“I haven’t given up on dating,” he said.

“ _Bruce_ ,” Clark said, drawing his name out.

“I haven’t.”

Bruce considered stopping there, however, he was eager to avoid being set up on yet another of Clark’s blind dates. With this in mind, he decided to offer up a secret he’d intended to keep to himself.

“In fact, just recently I downloaded some dating apps,” Bruce said. 

“Really?” Clark’s tone was mystified. Bruce could see in his peripheral vision that Clark was looking at him, but Bruce didn’t take his attention off the road in front of them.

“Yes,” Bruce said. “Really.”

“Which apps?”

“Do you really want to know?”

Clark didn’t answer the question, and they jogged on for a while longer without speaking. Bruce thought—hoped—that this was a sign that they were returning to their companionable silence from before. No such luck.

“What’s it like?” Clark asked. “The dating apps, I mean.”

Bruce turned his head and gave Clark a long, humorless look.

“I’m curious!” Clark said. “I met Lois right after college and that was before the era of dating apps. I wouldn’t trade being married to her for anything, but I can’t help but wonder what it’s like.”

Bruce thought about his experience so far. He’d only downloaded the apps and set up his profiles a few days ago, but that was long enough to get some initial impressions.

“I’ve talked to a few women who have been interesting, and a couple of men, but most of the rest of them have a single objective. The fact that I’m looking for something different doesn’t seem to concern them,” Bruce said. 

“I’m surprised you put up with it.”

“I considered deleting all of the apps after the first day.”

The first day, Bruce had received nine unsolicited photographs of genitalia (all from men) and six offers to join couples in threesomes, plus a variety of other indelicate propositions. It was difficult to find people who seemed smart and interesting, and almost everyone he’d tried to talk to launched straight into clumsy attempts at seduction. Bruce supposed he could have found it flattering, but instead he found it all mortifying.

“Do you think you’ll go on a date with anyone you’ve chatted with so far?” Clark asked.

Bruce shrugged and grunted. He hadn’t made up his mind yet.

He and Clark ran on in silence for a little while longer, and once again Bruce found himself hoping that the conversation portion of the run was over.

Again, Bruce was unlucky. Very unlucky.

“What’s going on with you and Hal?” Clark asked.

Bruce felt a jolt of alarm, but was careful not to look at Clark.

“I’m sorry?” Bruce said.

They passed Scott and Barda’s house, and Bruce saw that Barda was out on the driveway. He waved at her and she waved back, but Clark was too busy prying to notice she was there.

“It’s a little weird,” Clark said. “One day you and Hal are ready to tear out each other’s throats at any second and the next you’re nodding at each other like nothing ever happened. I mean, what the hell, Bruce?”

“Hal and I settled our differences,” Bruce said.

“When?” Clark said, sounding doubtful.

“When the old fence fell down. We talked about it and came to the mutual agreement that being at odds was not a realistic long-term scenario. So we decided to put our issues behind us.”

Clark scoffed. It was a loud sound.

“I find your incredulity offensive,” Bruce said.

Shaking his head, Clark chuckled and said, “I’m sorry, but I just don’t buy it. You were at odds with Alan for years. For _years_ , Bruce. You didn’t stop being at odds with him until after he moved out of the neighborhood. Hell, you were at odds with him even after he moved out of the neighborhood. Did you forget the time you called him to complain about his broken shutters and he mailed you a tiny violin?”

Of course Bruce hadn’t forgotten. It was hard to since Alfred kept the tiny violin in a place of honor on the mantle in the den.

“Hal is not Alan,” Bruce said. “Alan was no more interested in getting along with me than I was with him. You can’t patch up a relationship with someone if what they want is to be on your bad side.”

Clark didn’t say anything for a while, and when Bruce looked at him he found that Clark was focusing on him, not on the street in front of them. There was a sharpness to the way he was looking at Bruce that Bruce did not appreciate.

Bruce turned his attention back to their way forward and said, “He only moved in a couple of months ago. That’s not enough time to draw conclusions about someone.”

Clark made a _hmm_ noise, but didn’t say anything.

“I don’t see how it’s any of your business,” Bruce went on. “Who cares if Hal and I are getting along? Isn’t it preferable to the alternative?”

“Who cares? Everyone cares. Lois and I had dinner with Barry and Iris on Sunday night and it was the only thing Barry talked about all evening.”

This was unfortunate news, but Bruce was determined to give the impression that he was unruffled.

“I can’t believe you were gossiping about me,” Bruce said.

“I’m a reporter,” Clark said. “Sue me for being curious.”

“I’m considering it,” Bruce said.

Clark was about to retort, but then someone shouted, “Hey! Bruce!”

Bruce’s blood went cold. That was Hal’s voice.

Bruce looked in the direction the shouting had come from and sure enough, Hal was standing at the end of his driveway dressed in his usual work attire of coveralls and boots. He waved Bruce over when he saw he had Bruce’s attention.

Bruce didn’t look at Clark, but he could feel the laser-focus of his eyes.

“I’ll catch up with you,” Bruce told him, knowing full well he had no intention of doing so, and then he split off to go join Hal across the street.

“Ok,” Clark said. His tone was doubtful. Bruce still didn’t look at him, but he could see in his peripheral vision that Clark had slowed down considerably.

Bruce did his best to ignore Clark and focused on Hal instead, determined to be pleasant despite Hal’s unfortunate timing. After all, Hal probably wasn’t aware that they were the recent focus of the neighborhood gossips.

“Morning, Hal,” Bruce said. “Did you need something?”

“Yeah, I just wanted to run something by you,” Hal said.

Bruce cocked an eyebrow, curious.

“I’m having some people over next Saturday. Nothing major, just some friends and a few of my old coworkers. I haven’t had many opportunities to see them since Kyle moved in with me. I just thought you’d prefer to know in advance rather than me springing it on you,” Hal said.

Bruce felt several complicated emotions at once, but the loudest of them was shame over his past behavior.

Bruce swallowed his embarrassment and nodded, saying, “Of course. Thank you, Hal, but you don’t need to run these things by me. Of course you’ll want to see your friends.”

A small smirk crossed Hal’s face. It wasn’t quite mocking, but it was clear that he was amused about something which he did not share with Bruce. Bruce was too flustered by the entire morning to be offended.

“I should get inside,” Bruce said, and he turned away, intending to head straight for the house.

Hal spoke again before Bruce could go.

“Uh, Bruce?”

Bruce turned back to face him and said, “Yes?”

Hal hesitated. Bruce waited.

Before Hal could say whatever it was that he wanted to say, however, a truck drove around the bend and pulled up next to Hal’s curb. Bruce and Hal both looked in the vehicle’s direction when it approached, and Bruce saw that there was a dark-haired man behind the wheel. He was wearing a jacket a lot like the one Hal was often wearing. There was a Ferris Air patch on the jacket over his heart.

“Never mind,” Hal said, and turned, heading to the passenger door of the truck. “I’ll see you later, Bruce.”

Confused, Bruce waved at him and watched as Hal got into the truck. The dark-haired man eyed Bruce curiously as Hal fastened his seatbelt. Then he and Hal exchanged a few words inside the cab, and he pulled away from the curb and continued on down the street.

When they were gone, Bruce turned and went into the house, thinking about Clark and Vivian and distantly wondering what Hal had wanted to tell him.

* * *

Bruce woke up in a terrible mood the following morning. He’d spent most of Thursday evening dealing with a man who kept requesting explicit photographs from Bruce. Bruce had inevitably blocked the man, but he was still annoyed by his behavior. It was making him consider deleting the dating apps all over again.

That morning after his usual run, however, Bruce witnessed something that distracted him from dating apps and the desperate individuals who used them.

He was in the guest room looking for Damian’s winter coat when a flash of red out the window caught his eye. Bruce looked up from the box he was digging through and saw Jason out the window, wearing his favorite red hoodie.

Bruce watched, curious. Jason’s hood was covering his face and his back was turned to Bruce, but there was no doubt it was him. None of Bruce’s other kids were that tall or broad. What he was doing hanging out in the backyard, Bruce had no idea.

The answer to that question was revealed a few moments later, when Kyle emerged from his own house and came around the corner to meet Jason.

Bruce shook his head, exasperated. Jason was still grounded, but he’d been putting on such a good show of obedience lately that Bruce had started to consider ungrounding him. He should’ve expected that Jason had found a way to break the rules. Bruce was on high alert in the afternoon and evening, but there was far too much going on in the morning for Bruce to keep an eye on him all the time. Their meeting spot was almost perfect, too. Hardly anyone went into the guest room. No one upstairs would’ve been able to see them either because they were hidden under the privacy of a tree in Hal’s yard. If not for pure chance, Bruce never would have found out.

Fortunately, Bruce had left the light off in the guest room, so he was unconcerned about being spotted as he continued to dig through boxes, occasionally glancing up to see if Jason and Kyle were still talking. Indeed, Jason and Kyle’s conversation went on for a little while, both of them animated and excited about something. Then Bruce found the coat at last and held it, arms crossed over his chest, as he watched Jason and Kyle, growing more irritated by the second.

But just as Bruce was turning away to go bust them, something happened that stopped Bruce in his tracks. Kyle grabbed Jason’s hands, leaned in, and stepped up on his tippy-toes so that he could kiss Jason.

Bruce could only stare, flabbergasted by what he’d just seen.

There was no repeat of the kiss. Kyle stepped back, smiling. He said something to Jason and Jason shrugged his shoulders. The conversation went on.

Bruce found the sense to unstick his feet from the floor. He turned and left the guest room, taking Damian’s coat with him.

* * *

Bruce intended to keep what he saw to himself and think about it for a while, but that went out the window later the same day.

It was almost 9 p.m., and Bruce was in the library. He was swiping through profiles on dating apps again, but he wasn’t really paying very much attention to what he was seeing. His focus was still stuck on Jason, as it had been stuck on him all day.

Alfred walked into the library, a book tucked under his arm.

“I didn’t expect to find you here,” Alfred said.

Alfred examined him, no doubt noting that Bruce had no book in his hands. He did not comment about this, however. Instead Alfred went over to one of the shelves and tucked a book back into an empty slot.

“I was rereading _Candide_ this week. It’s one of my favorite books to read in autumn,” Alfred told him.

Bruce already knew this about Alfred. He also knew that Alfred had read the book in the original French, not a translation.

Bruce didn’t mention any of this, and instead said, “Could you shut the door? I need to discuss something with you.”

Alfred raised his eyebrows. Without comment, he walked across the library to shut the door, then turned back to Bruce. He didn’t say anything, but there was a calm, expectant expression on his face.

“It’s about Jason,” Bruce said, keeping his voice low. “I witnessed something this morning.”

“I assume you are referring to Jason’s relationship with Mr. Rayner,” Alfred said.

Bruce stared at Alfred, astonished and speechless for a moment. Alfred’s expression did not change.

“You knew? How?” Bruce asked him.

“Because Jason told me.”

Once again, Bruce was speechless. And, if he was being honest with himself, a little wounded.

“Before you ask, he told me not to tell anyone. I was sworn to secrecy. Secrecy I am no longer bound to maintain now that you know,” Alfred said.

“How come he told you?” Bruce asked.

“Do you mean why did he tell me and not you? I am not certain, however, I do have my suspicions.”

“Which are?”

“He asked me what I thought the rest of you would say if you found out that he was dating a boy. Further questioning revealed that he is dating someone already and the boy he is dating happens to be our neighbor Kyle. I told him that I thought the rest of the family would be happy for him. He said nothing else, but I think he is not quite ready to discuss it with the family. My impression is that the situation with Kyle is rather new,” Alfred said.

Bruce nodded absently, but said nothing. Of course, in a way it did make perfect sense that Jason would talk to Alfred and not him. From the beginning, Jason bonded with Alfred in a way that he hadn’t with Bruce. They were important to each other, and it would be petty to resent that.

Alfred, of course, knew Bruce’s mind far too well. As if he could tell exactly what Bruce was thinking, he said, “I would not fixate on the fact that he told me before you. Of course, I cannot speak from personal experience, but I can imagine that coming out to a parent is difficult for a child, even when you know that parent would be accepting. You kept your secret from me until you were in your twenties, even though you were aware of my opinions on the matter of sexual orientation.”

Alfred’s words didn’t quite sooth him, but he knew Alfred was right.

“Well, now the problem is that I’m not sure what to do about him,” Bruce said.

Alfred cocked his head. “What do you mean?”

“He’s still grounded. I was ready to ground him for another three weeks when I caught him sneaking out to talk to Kyle this morning. But then I saw…what I saw, and I think I understand why he was so eager to not be grounded anymore. But surely ungrounding him is just rewarding him for bad behavior, even if I understand why he did it,” Bruce said.

Alfred smirked and said, “Ah, such are the trials of parenthood.”

Bruce shot him a cross look, but Alfred seemed amused by it more than anything.

“Well, if you don’t mind, I am going to select another book and retire for the evening,” Alfred said. “I will let you make the final rounds to check on the children.”

“Of course,” Bruce said.

Alfred smiled at him and took a book. Then he departed from the library, and Bruce was alone again, left to stew over his thoughts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there readers it's me two and a half weeks late with a chapter 
> 
> The number of times I wrote this chapter, hated it, deleted it and started over: I lost count but it was at least 3 times.


	14. Chapter 14

A couple of things happened over the next week.

The first thing was that Bruce ungrounded Jason at long last. He went up to Jason’s room on Sunday night and told him that his term of punishment was over, but that he absolutely could not be involved in any kind of fighting incident again. Jason was dismissive at first, so Bruce reminded him that if he had to leave Kane High, it would also mean having to leave Kyle. Jason took his warning a little more seriously after that.

With this done, Bruce was able to focus on his own personal affairs. After days of awkward messages and inappropriate propositions, he’d at last found someone that he could have a real conversation with through one of his dating apps. The man’s name was Harvey, and he was only a couple of years older than Bruce. Bruce and Harvey could chat so long about so much that even Alfred mentioned how much extra time Bruce was spending on his phone. It was a relief to have someone to talk to who could take his mind off Hal.

Then Saturday rolled around.

It was a quiet evening for the Wayne household. All but one of the kids were out of the house with their friends, and the remaining child, Damian, was in the den with Alfred watching some masterpiece theater production on PBS. Since he had nothing else to do, Bruce was in the library trying to work up the nerve to ask Harvey if he wanted to go on an actual date.

Somewhere beyond the house, a dog started barking. Bruce didn’t notice it at first because he was so focused on his conversation with Harvey.

The barking went on.

Bruce looked up and listened. Now that he was paying attention, he noticed that the barking dog sounded a lot like Ace.

Bruce turned off his phone screen and got up to investigate, sticking his phone in his back pocket as he left the library.

Damian and Alfred were still absorbed by their program, so they didn’t take notice when Bruce stuck his head in the door and scanned the den for the dog. Damian’s cat was draped over the back of the couch, but there was no sign of Ace.

Bruce left the den and headed to the backyard. Sure enough, the closer he got to the back of the house, the louder the barking got.

Bruce opened the door and stepped out onto the back porch, head swiveling back and forth as he searched for Ace. There was a fire pit lit in Hal’s yard, so it didn’t take Bruce long to spot him.

A crowd of people was gathered around the fire pit, but one figure had split from the group and was standing at the imaginary barrier between Bruce’s yard and Hal’s yard. As Bruce’s eyes adjusted to the dimmer light, he took in more details. The man was tall, kind of stocky, and had bright red hair. Only a few feet in front of him, Ace was rigid, hackles up and barking. Ace could be intimidating when he was suspicious of a stranger, but the redhead seemed, if anything, bored by the dog’s display of aggression. He drank a sip from the bottle of beer in his hand.

Bruce intervened. He ran down to grab the dog and picked him up before he could get any closer to the redhead. Ace didn’t like this very much, but after a moment of struggling, he at last settled.

Bruce looked at the redhead. The redhead stared back. He looked familiar. Bruce recognized him as the man who’d burped at him, but he couldn’t recall the man’s name. Gus? Gary?

Whatever his name was, a smug smirk was spreading across his face. With the hand holding the beer bottle, he pointed at Ace with his index finger and asked, “This is your dog?”

“He is,” Bruce said.

“Jeez, the racket he was making. If I was one of your neighbors I’d complain.”

The redhead raised an eyebrow. He said nothing else, but his expression was so smug that Bruce briefly entertained the idea of putting the dog back down.

He didn’t, because at that moment the situation got worse. The back door to Hal’s house opened and Hal himself stepped out. Bruce saw him emerge from over the redhead’s shoulder, but Hal didn’t notice Bruce and the redhead at first. He scanned the backyard, appearing relaxed and pleased by the sight of all of his friends gathered. Then his gaze made it to the place where Bruce, the dog, and the redhead were in a standoff, and his aura of calm dissipated at once.

Hal came over to them immediately, jogging the last few steps to get to them. When he arrived, he reached out and slipped his arm behind redhead’s back, slapping him on the shoulder with a hand. He might’ve held on, but the redhead shook him off, shooting Hal a dirty look as he did so.

“What’s going on?” Hal asked.

Bruce opened his mouth to speak, but the redhead beat him to the punch.

“I was just reminding your neighbor that excessive barking is noise pollution,” he said.

Hal sighed and said, “Guy, come on.”

Bruce ignored Guy and looked only at Hal when he said, “I am sorry about Ace. I let him out earlier because I forgot you were having a party tonight. I can take him back inside.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Hal said, shaking his head.

Bruce was about to leave the awkward situation when someone split from the group around the fire pit and came over to join their small crowd. It was a petite woman with short blonde hair.

“Is that your dog?” the woman asked, pointing at Ace.

“He is,” Bruce said. Ace had noticed the woman’s approach, and began to wag his tail.

“Do you mind if I pet him?” she asked.

Bruce considered the question for a moment, then set the dog down. Ace had never bitten anyone before, so he wasn’t too concerned he might start with Guy.

Bruce’s faith in Ace was immediately rewarded when he bypassed Guy entirely and went over to the blonde to be petted. She knelt down to oblige him.

“I, uh, guess I should introduce you,” Hal said. He pointed at the redhead and said, “Bruce, is Guy. Guy, Bruce.”

“We’ve met,” Guy said, eyeing Bruce with disdain.

“And this is Arisia,” Hal said, jerking his head at the blonde. “Arisia, this is Bruce, my next door neighbor.”

“The one you were telling me about,” Arisia said to Hal, smiling.

Hal shot her a look. She returned her attention to the dog, but the smile lingered.

“I may have mentioned him,” Hal said mildly, and then he turned back to Bruce and asked, “Look, do you want to stick around?”

Bruce and Guy both stared at Hal for a moment. Guy looked as bewildered as Bruce felt. 

“I’m sorry?” Bruce said.

“You should stay and have a drink. Some of the other neighbors are here. Barry couldn’t come, but Ted and Michael are here. Ollie and Dinah are too. Of course, I understand if you’ve got kids to watch…”

Bruce had to think about it for a moment. Surely it wasn’t a wise idea for him and Hal to be spending time together, especially so since Bruce seemed to be having such an inexplicably difficult time moving on from the kiss.

On the other hand, nothing could happen between them while Hal had a house full of people over, and Bruce had Harvey now to pursue. Also, for some reason the thought of returning to the quiet library to spend the evening alone was desperately unappealing. He was always trying to slither out of social events, and he wasn’t even very sure why.

So Bruce smiled at Hal and said, “Sure, I’ll stay for a bit.”

Hal’s eyes widened with surprise, but he smiled too. Clearly he had not been expecting Bruce to say yes. Guy looked both mystified and annoyed. Arisia was ignoring them in favor of the dog.

Hal said, “Great! I’ll show you around and introduce you to everyone. You want a drink? You drink beer, right?”

Guy began glaring at Bruce, but Bruce pretended not to notice.

“Beer’s fine,” Bruce said, and stepped around Guy to follow Hal across the yard.

* * *

Hal did fetch Bruce a beer, and then Bruce spent the first twenty minutes of Hal’s party being herded around the backyard and house as Hal introduced him to all of his friends.

Hal’s friends were loud and they all had nonsensical nicknames that were impossible for Bruce to keep track of, but on the whole they were much more congenial than Guy. As they were making the rounds, Bruce saw Michael and Ted, and later Ollie and Dinah as well. They seemed surprised but not unhappy to see Bruce, and if they were curious, they kept their curiosity to themselves. As a result, Bruce’s remaining doubts about attending the party were easy to shrug off.

Bruce expected Hal to depart when the introductions portion of the evening had concluded, so it was a little surprising when Hal instead stayed with Bruce in the den, lingering as Bruce chatted with Ollie, Dinah, and Hal’s friend John Stewart. Guy eventually joined them as well, but he was still annoyed by Bruce’s presence. He stayed on John’s other side far away from Bruce, and only contributed to the conversation if there was something he could needle Bruce about.

Thanks to Ollie, one of the first things Guy found to needle Bruce about were the kids.

“You have six children?” Guy asked, raising one of his huge eyebrows. “What the hell for?”

It hadn’t taken Bruce long to pick up on the fact that being insulting was just how Guy talked to people. Since Hal and John and the rest of Hal’s friends either ignored it or threw it right back at him, Bruce followed suit and did the same.

“It’s not really any of your business,” Bruce told him.

“I’m just saying,” Guy said, shrugging. “Condoms were invented for a reason.”

“Most of Bruce’s kids were adopted,” Dinah said.

“Is that supposed to make it better? That makes it worse.” 

“You’re getting a teaching degree right now. You do know that teachers have to be around children all the time, right?” John asked Guy.

“Yeah, and I get to send them home to their parents at the end of the day,” Guy said.

Bruce felt a spike of alarm at this news. Guy seemed like the very last person in the world who should be around kids. Then again, perhaps there was something that Bruce was missing. Maybe Guy intended to become a coach. He could imagine that Guy would be an effective, if unpleasant coach.

“Are you going to coach a sport?” Bruce asked him.

Guy’s face screwed up into an expression that was so insulted it was almost comical. He said, “No, I’m not going to become a coach. I’m going to teach special ed classes.” 

Bruce’s concerns multiplied. Guy’s expression was combative—it was obvious he was waiting for Bruce to say something negative.

Before either of them said anything, however, Hal said, “Guy’s way better with kids than you’d think. Way better with kids than with adults.”

Guy looked at Hal and snapped, “Hey, fuck you. Anyway, this conversation isn’t about my life choices. We were talking about Mr. Six Kids over here.” He jerked a thumb at Bruce.

“Four of my children are adopted. One of them is a foster child. The youngest is my biological son,” Bruce said.

“And you’re not married? Big shock,” Guy said.

John—who, so far, didn’t seem to like Bruce anymore than Guy did—shot Guy an exasperated look. Bruce took this as evidence that Guy was being ruder than usual, and was about to respond to this with equal venom. He didn’t get the chance, because Hal spoke before Guy or Bruce could.

“Bruce’s kids are great,” Hal said.

Bruce looked at him, surprised again.

“I’ve only really gotten to know Jason, but the others seem like good kids too. Jason’s sharp as a tack. He and Kyle are basically attached at the hip,” Hal went on.

Before Bruce could come up with a response to this, a stern-looking woman with long red hair in a ponytail tapped Hal on the shoulder. She said, “Hey, Sora can’t find the rest of the beers.”

“Oh, they’re in the fridge in the garage. I’ll go get them,” Hal told her. Then he turned back to the rest of them and said, “I’ll be right back.”

Hal left with the stern woman, and then it was just Bruce, Guy, John, Dinah, and Oliver.

“I didn’t know you and Hal were getting along, Bruce,” Oliver said.

Oliver’s tone sounded a little bored when he said this, but Bruce was still suspicious of his curiosity.

“Last thing Hal told us, you were still being a pain in the ass,” Guy added unhelpfully.

“Hal and I settled our differences a couple of weeks ago. Our kids are friends, after all,” Bruce said vaguely. Then Bruce turned his attention to Guy and John—more to John than to Guy—and asked, “How long have you two known Hal?”

“About ten years. We used to work together,” John said.

“At Ferris Air?” Bruce asked.

Guy snorted and said, “No, on the police force. Hal’s the only one crazy enough to risk his life in Carol Ferris’s jets.”

Bruce frowned, confused.

“You’re police officers?” he asked.

“We _were_ police officers,” John said.

“Past tense,” Guy added.

Bruce waited, but neither Guy nor John went on.

Then John was distracted by Dinah, who wandered over to his side and asked him something about about a project he was working on. From the bits Bruce heard as they chatted, he was able to put it together that John was an architect, or at least studying to become one.

Bruce could’ve found some way to join their conversation, but he was too distracted. Instead he sipped his beer, silent in the crowded, noisy room, questions bubbling up in his mind. He distantly wondered where Hal went and if he was really going to come back, then shut the thought down. It didn’t matter.

It wasn’t long before Oliver was drawn into John and Dinah’s discussion as well. They drifted off nearby, and then Bruce was left standing next to Guy. He considered making up an excuse to go outside and talk to someone else.

Bruce did not go. The longer he considered what Guy and John had told him, the more questions he had, all of them demanding answers.

“Hal never mentioned anything about having worked for the police force,” Bruce said to Guy.

“Yeah, well he wouldn’t, would he? He’s still pissy about how the whole thing went down,” Guy said. 

Bruce frowned and said, “What do you mean?”

Guy crossed his arms over his massive chest, standing a little taller than before. Bruce got the impression that Guy often puffed himself up on purpose.

“Hal and John and I quit the force in protest,” Guy said. “John and I got over it, but Hal never really did. He denies it, but I can tell.”

“What was it you were protesting?” Bruce asked.

“The usual bullshit. New chief took over and he turned out to be a total sadist,” Guy said.

Bruce didn’t say anything, but he must’ve hit a nerve; Guy went on ranting without any provocation.

“I never noticed any problems with him before he was promoted, but the power went to his head,” Guy said. “If he had it his way, the whole damn town would be too damn petrified to leave their houses. Hal and John and I said we didn’t think it was right to use fear tactics on people, even criminals, but the chief wouldn’t listen.”

Bruce absorbed this. If this was all true, then some of Hal’s other behavior was starting to make more sense. No wonder Hal had been so angry at Jason and Kyle’s principal. Of course he would hate to see the kids get punished for standing up against a bully.

Bruce also remembered how he’d threatened to call the police during one of Hal’s first parties, unintentionally rubbing salt in a wound he hadn’t known existed. As usual Bruce had bungled it, not even knowing all of the ways he was bungling it.

Guy was oblivious to Bruce’s inner turmoil. He went on, saying, “We probably would’ve left earlier than we did, but Hal was wasting our time trying to suck the guy’s dick. The chief trained Hal, so I guess he thought he could talk him around, get him to see reason. Look where that got him. Unemployed like the rest of us.”

Guy let out a bark of laughter, and Bruce leveled Guy with a humorless expression.

“Is that the kind of thing you consider funny? A man performing sexual acts on another man?” Bruce asked.

That disdainful expression came over Guy’s face again, and he looked over his shoulder toward the spot near them where Oliver, Dinah, and John were having their own conversation.

“Hey John?” Guy said. “How long had we known each other before I hit on you?”

“What do you mean, ‘how long?’ You introduced yourself by hitting on me,” John said. 

Guy looked back to Bruce, smug again.

So Guy wasn’t just some homophobic ex-cop. Still, that didn’t mean Bruce had to accept everything that came out of his mouth.

“Perhaps the next time you tell this story you could phrase that bit differently,” Bruce suggested.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Guy said.

“Hal hoped for this individual to become a better person and it’s obvious that you have a problem with it, but that doesn’t mean it’s right to made crude jokes at Hal’s expense.”

“Who says it was a joke?” Guy asked, eyelashes fluttering innocently. “Maybe I was serious when I said that Hal was trying to suck his dick. Did you consider that?”

For some reason Bruce couldn’t explain to himself, he didn’t want to believe it. But then again, he reminded himself, why did it matter? It wasn’t any of Bruce’s concern.

“Well,” Bruce said to Guy, his tone still cool. “Hal doesn’t seem to have a problem with the way you talk, so I guess that’s what matters.”

“There’s nothing wrong with the way I talk,” Guy said.

There was so much activity going on in the room that Bruce didn’t notice Hal’s approach. Suddenly Hal was at his side, saying, “Oh, there really is.”

Bruce glanced over at Hal, a little concerned about how much of the conversation he might’ve overheard. If Hal had heard anything, however, there was nothing on his face to give it away.

“Go fuck yourself, Hal,” Guy said.

“I would if I could,” Hal said cheekily, grinning at him.

“You're disgusting.”

Hal ignored Guy and turned to Bruce, asking, “Would you like a tour of the house?”

Bruce studied Hal for a moment, searching for…well, he wasn’t quite sure what he was searching for. The smart answer, of course, was no. But once again, his curiosity overrode his sense. Bruce had spent years living next to Hal’s house and had never gotten along well enough with Alan to see the inside of it.

“Sure,” Bruce said.

“Good, come with me,” Hal said. His eyes flickered dismissively over at Guy and Guy flipped them off, but Hal ignored this too and turned to lead Bruce out of the crowded den.

* * *

Hal was in a good mood as he showed Bruce around the house. They did a quick sweep of the first floor, most of which Bruce had already seen when Hal was introducing him to everyone. Bruce drank the rest of his beer while they walked around the first floor, so Hal fetched him another from the kitchen before they went upstairs.

The noise from downstairs seemed to fade to the back of Bruce’s mind as Hal showed him around the second floor. The upstairs wasn’t even very big—certainly not nearly as big as the second floor of Bruce’s house—but was somehow more interesting than downstairs, and Hal talked a mile a minute. The top of the stairs opened up to a landing which had been designated as a home gym, and Hal had clearly spent a fortune on exercise equipment. Next, with obvious reluctance, Hal showed Bruce a hallway bathroom with black and white tile flooring that had been mostly pried up, bits of old grout and shards of tile scattered everywhere. Hal sighed over the project before he shut the door, hiding the mess from view.

“This one is Kyle’s room,” Hal said, waving a hand at an open door down the hall.

They didn’t go in and there were no lights on in Kyle’s room, but the hallway was bright enough so that Bruce could see a few details. It was sparsely furnished, but there were several drawings and illustrations on the walls. It was also a bit messy, but that was to be expected of a teenager. Few kids were as tidy as Jason.

“Where is Kyle tonight?” Bruce asked.

“He’s spending the night over at Connor’s house. I told him I was having a party and he needed to scram,” Hal said.

“Jason is with Kyle and Connor right now,” Bruce said, frowning. It should’ve occurred to him earlier, especially since Dinah and Oliver were at the party.

“Is he?” Hal said, not sounding at all concerned.

Bruce wondered if Hal knew about Kyle and Jason. If he did, he didn’t seem concerned that they were unsupervised. He almost said something, but changed his mind. After all, Jason and Kyle weren’t alone, they were with Connor. And if the three boys managed to get into any trouble while Oliver and Dinah were out, then, well, Jason would just go back to being grounded again.

“I’ll show you the office,” Hal said, carrying on down the hall.

Bruce followed him and they went down the hall to a closed door, which Hal opened. He flicked on the light and stepped aside so Bruce could go in.

“Most of this furniture isn’t mine,” Hal said. “Alan left it when he moved out.”

The room had dark green carpet and was packed with delicate dark wood furniture. Chair backs and dresser drawers were decorated with carvings of branches and flowers, and a bookcase was crammed full of old books and knickknacks, most of which were old photographs in metal frames.

Bruce pointed to the chair tucked under the desk and said, “That chair looks like it might fall apart if Damian sat on it.”

Hal laughed, shrugging before he leaned up against the doorframe. He said, “Alan likes his luxuries. I guess he decided since he was retiring he didn’t need an office anymore. I don’t mind so much that he left this room for me to sort out since he at least had the decency to clean out the master bedroom.”

Of course, Bruce had already caught glimpses of _that_ room.

Mostly to distract himself from that troublesome line of thought, Bruce went over to one of the bookshelves to take a closer look at their contents. He was unsurprised to see a lot of thick nonfiction books, most of them about science and philosophy. There were a few classics as well, but otherwise very little fiction. Alan always did strike Bruce as the type to make himself look cultured by filling his bookshelves with intimidating titles.

The photographs caught Bruce’s attention, distracting him from the books.

“Is this you?” he asked, nodding his head at one of the pictures.

Hal stood up straight and walked over next to him to get a better look.

It was a photograph of Alan with a small boy. The boy was a mini version of Hal in blue jeans with holes in the knees, boots, and a hooded jacket that was just a bit too big for him. Alan was beaming at him with so much obvious pride that it almost made Bruce feel a positive emotion about him.

“Yeah, that’s me and Uncle Alan,” Hal said. He smiled wryly at Bruce and added, “Me and my siblings used to come visit him over the summer, but I was always his favorite. My brother Jim threw a sandal at me when he found out Uncle Alan was giving me the house, but he got over it. He knows it was mostly because of Kyle anyway.”

Bruce, frowning a little, said, “For Kyle?”

“Uncle Alan knew Kyle was going to come live here and didn’t think Kyle should have to live with me in my dirty, dark apartment. His words,” Hal said. He rolled his eyes, but added, “Uncle Alan has lots of opinions, but his heart’s in the right place.”

Bruce had already asked way more questions than was polite for a single evening, but found himself asking another like he just couldn’t help it.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what is the situation there? With Kyle, I mean,” Bruce said.

Hal frowned, a troubled expression crossing his face. He looked away, focusing on the pictures on Alan’s bookshelves as he said, “Kyle’s parents are getting a divorce. His dad hasn’t been around much in the first place and Kyle and his mom, uh, have problems sometimes. It was getting really messy and Kyle was getting the brunt of it, so I suggested he come live with me for a while. Maura said okay.”

Hal still didn’t look at Bruce, so it was safe to stare at Hal’s profile. Hal seemed almost embarrassed, as if Bruce was some kind of madman would judge him for taking steps to remove a kid from a dysfunctional and unhealthy home.

How wrong he’d been about all of it. How completely and utterly he hadn’t understood, hadn’t bothered to understand.

Bruce was still staring at Hal when Hal finally looked back at him. Something about Bruce’s thoughts must’ve been showing on his face, because Hal frowned and said, “What?”

They weren’t very far apart. Bruce had been drinking, and it was still true that Hal was extremely attractive. There was a slight flush of alcohol in his cheeks, and Bruce could smell the faint scents of cologne and fire pit smoke lingering on his clothes.

Bruce waited for his phone to buzz with a message from Harvey, or for somebody to come stomping up the stairs looking for Hal. But nothing happened. There was nothing to stop him from kissing Hal again.

Nothing, of course, except for the memory of Hal saying he wanted to forget what happened between them.

“I think it’s admirable,” Bruce said, after too much time. His voice was a little hoarse, so he cleared his throat before he went on. “Stepping in to help Kyle. Moving, taking on the responsibility of a homeowner and caretaker, giving up the freedom of the childless bachelor lifestyle. That’s a lot.”

Bruce shut his mouth to stop himself from gushing, and then it was Hal’s turn to be silent.

Hal’s eyes scanned Bruce’s face. He opened his mouth to say something, but whatever it was he’d meant to say, he didn’t. The hallway was bright and empty beyond Hal’s shoulder, the sounds of the party muffled far below.

This time, Hal was the one who messed up. He waivered toward Bruce, drawn toward him for an instant before he was leaning back.

But Bruce had been paying very close attention, and he hadn’t missed it. All of the reasons not to do it were wiped from his brain as he closed the distance between them and kissed Hal.

Hal was only behind him for an instant, and then his hands were on Bruce, his mouth open, tongue tasting of beer. Before Bruce knew it, he was being steered against the bookshelf, jostling knickknacks and picture frames as his backside collided with it.

Hal kissed him like it was the only thing he’d been thinking about for days. Bruce kissed him back with equal fervor.

He didn’t return to his senses until Hal’s hand drifted under Bruce’s jacket and shirt, his callused fingers drifting across sensitive skin.

Bruce opened his eyes as he pulled back, chin stinging from where Hal’s stubble had scraped him.

“I thought you wanted to forget,” he said. 

“Forget I said that,” Hal said, breathless. “Forget everything I said.”

Bruce shut his eyes and did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hal's former chief is Sinestro, just in case that isn't excruciatingly obvious. I just couldn't think of a way to make Evil Evilguy sound like a name a real person would have XD


	15. Chapter 15

Bruce thought he was over his secretly making out at a party years, but well—the evening was full of revelations.

Being pressed up against a bookshelf wasn’t comfortable, so Bruce maneuvered Hal toward a bare stretch of wall. Then it was Bruce who had Hal pressed up against something, and really, this was better. Hal was pliable beneath his hands, and kissed Bruce as if stopping would kill him.

Bruce couldn’t have said how much time they spent making out up against the wall in Alan Scott’s old study. The party went on downstairs. People were laughing and the music was turned up so loud that the floor vibrated, but Bruce didn’t care or notice.

When one of Hal’s hands made it to Bruce’s belt buckle, Bruce didn’t stop him. Hal undid the clasp and Bruce still didn’t stop him. There was the sound of metal clanging as Hal tugged the belt out of the way, and then he unbuttoned Bruce’s jeans. Bruce let him. He unzipped Bruce’s fly—

Bruce’s senses returned with a rush of mortified heat. He broke the kiss and grabbed Hal’s hand, stopping him from unzipping his fly all the way.

“ _Hal_ ,” Bruce said.

Hal’s eyes blinked open. He frowned at Bruce, looking more put out than anything else as he said, “What?”

“What are you doing?” Bruce asked, his voice low. “There’s a party going on downstairs.”

“People sneak out of parties to make out all the time,” Hal said.

“It’s _your_ party,” Bruce reminded him. “What if someone comes looking for you and finds you—well. What if one of the neighbors comes up here?”

Hal considered this, raising his eyebrows. He said, “I mean, I don’t think anybody would be surprised about me, but I can see how they’d be surprised about you.” 

Bruce didn’t say anything in response to this, but he didn’t need to. Hal saw the look on Bruce’s face and laughed, saying, “Ok, ok, we’ll stop.”

Despite this, Hal still leaned in closer, running his fingers through Bruce’s hair.

Close to Bruce’s lips, he whispered, “But to be continued later, right? Like tomorrow maybe?”

Bruce frowned again, which only made Hal grin. He was so close and warm that for a second, Bruce’s resolve almost slipped all over again. But no, he thought to himself as he leaned away, not giving Hal what he so obviously wanted. This rendezvous could not go on any longer.

No matter how much a very loud, very stupid part of Bruce wanted it to.

“Later,” Bruce agreed, and Hal grinned wider, his eyes sparkling with delight.

Hal finally stepped back from Bruce then. Bruce missed the contact once it was gone, but knew it was necessary. He backed away too and fixed his jeans. Hal leaned against the wall, content to watch Bruce put his belt back on.

When Bruce was sorted, Hal held out a hand and said, “Let me see your phone.” 

“What for?” Bruce asked, alarmed.

“So that I can give you my number, Bruce,” Hal said, his tone indicating that Bruce was being tiresome.

Bruce pulled his phone out of his back pocket and swiped away some notifications from his dating app before he handed the device to Hal. Hal took it and quickly added himself as one of Bruce’s contacts. When he was done, he stood up straight and handed the phone back.

He approached Bruce again, but this time instead of trying to kiss Bruce he reached up and began toying with Bruce’s hair.

“What are you doing?” Bruce asked.

“Trying to make it a little less obvious that we just made out,” Hal said.

Bruce scanned Hal’s face while he was busy, realizing the same thing should’ve occurred to him. Hal’s lips were rosy and plump, his skin burned red from where Bruce’s stubble had been rubbing up against it. He couldn’t remember putting his hands in Hal’s hair, but since it was sticking up all over the place, he evidently had at some point.

So Bruce leaned back over and fixed Hal’s hair too. Then he tried to brush the wrinkles out of Hal’s clothes, but they were stubborn. Hal saw what Bruce was doing and did the same for Bruce.

“Everyone’s so drunk I doubt they’ll notice,” Hal said. “Your face is a little red but everyone will assume you just had one too many beers.”

“If any of the other neighbors see us together—”

“Then we’ll sneak back downstairs one at a time,” Hal said, interrupting Bruce. “I’ll stay on one side of the house, you stay on the other.”

“This plan isn’t very well-thought out,” Bruce said.

Hal raised an eyebrow and said, “Hm, too bad. Maybe you shouldn’t have gone along with such an obvious ploy to get you alone.”

Bruce opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, Hal slipped forward and kissed him. It was only a peck, and then Hal was sliding around him and backing out of the room, saying, “Give me about three minutes.”

He was out the door and gone before Bruce had a chance to say anything.

Bruce stayed upstairs in Alan Scott’s old study for longer than three minutes. He killed the time inspecting himself with his cell phone camera, and was unsurprised to find that, like Hal, he looked like—well, like he’d been interrupted while about to have sex.

He briefly considered just going home, but decided against it. Even if one of the neighbors spotted them and put two and two together, Bruce didn’t want to go home yet.

It was this desire that finally compelled him to leave the study and return to the downstairs.

Something was going on in the den, so Bruce had no trouble at all joining the mass of bodies. The people around him were gawking and he could hear raised voices, so Bruce stood up straighter and tried to get a look over their shoulders, wondering what was going on.

“—none of that explains why the hell you’d try to put the damn thing back together, Sodam,” Hal was saying.

There was a dark-haired man sitting on the ground—Sodam, Bruce assumed, since Hal was looking at him—and shards of something glass spread around him. There was also a crushed lampshade, so Bruce assumed the glass had once been a lamp.

“I’m sorry, Hal,” Sodam said. “It was an accident. I was arm-wrestling Iolande and we got a little out of control and I bumped it with my elbow.”

“Don’t drag me into this,” said a woman. She had long black braided hair that was pulled up into a complex crown of braids.

“And you thought putting it back together was a good idea?” Hal asked Sodam. “How much have you had to drink?”

Sodam launched into a rambling explanation about how he hadn’t had much to drink at all. His face was just about as red as Hal’s, however, and when Hal tried to help him stand up he teetered like he might fall over. Hal yelled for somebody to fetch a broom.

“Bruce!”

His name had been spoken so close to his ear that Bruce flinched. He turned toward the speaker, horrified to make eye contact with Michael Carter-Kord.

“Hey Bruce,” Michael said, grinning at him. His face was also rather flushed, and he was beaming like running into Bruce was the highlight of his evening.

“Hi Michael,” Bruce said.

If Michael noticed his utter lack of enthusiasm, he didn’t show it. He kept smiling and said, “How’ve you been? I’m surprised to see you here tonight. I thought you and Hal were like, enemies or something. Barry told me you almost fought him in the middle of the street once.”

Bruce narrowed his eyes at Michael, but again his displeasure had no effect on the man. Perhaps Michael was too drunk to pick up on social cues.

“Hal and I had a couple of disagreements after he moved in, but we’ve patched that all up,” Bruce said.

“I saw your fence fell down. You haven’t bullied him into building a new one yet? Isn’t there a whole section of the HOA agreement devoted just to fences?” Michael asked.

What Bruce would have given to be rescued from the conversation.

Instead of answering him, Bruce plastered on what he was sure was an unconvincing smile and asked, “Where did Ted go?”

Michael shrugged. “He’s in the backyard talking to Hal’s friends. Have you met John and Guy?”

“Yes,” Bruce said.

“Nice guys,” Michael said, nodding.

Bruce was saved from having to respond to this because something caught Michael’s attention across the room. Bruce looked in the direction Michael was looking, curious, and saw that Michael was staring at Hal. Hal had returned without Sodam but with a broom, and he was griping at Iolande as he swept up the ruined remains of the lamp.

Bruce looked back to Michael in time to see his eyes narrow. Then, Michael’s gaze flashed back to Bruce. His eyes scanned Bruce’s face, lingering around Bruce’s reddened chin.

“I need to get going,” Bruce said abruptly, and he turned into the dark shadow of the front entryway.

“Oh, ok,” Michael said.

“Got to check on the kids,” Bruce said.

“I hope they’re doing well.”

“They’re doing great,” Bruce said. “Have a good evening.”

Bruce turned and left before Michael could say anything else. He didn’t stop until he was out the door, across the yards, through his own front door, and consumed by the pitch black darkness of his own front entryway.

He stood in the silent darkness and breathed in deep, both glad and disappointed to be home. Then he leaned against the wall and rubbed a hand over his chafed mouth.

“Damn it,” he muttered, though he wasn’t quite sure at what exactly this sentiment was directed. He’d run away. He needed to text Hal. Curse Michael Carter-Kord. Bruce could only hope he was too drunk to remember anything in the morning.

Bruce pulled off his boots and left them in a pile by the front door, then he headed upstairs to text Hal.

* * *

Hal didn’t text Bruce back that night.

This had Bruce tossing and turning for a while, paranoid and concerned that he’d insulted Hal with his abrupt departure. Eventually the alcohol and the day’s excitement got to Bruce at last, and he was asleep without ever being aware that he was drifting off.

Bruce woke up on his stomach the next morning to the sound of rain pattering into his bedroom windows. He got out of bed at once, feeling sleep-muddled and insecure as a teenage boy as he immediately went over to check his phone.

There were two messages, both sent around a quarter after 3 a.m.

Hal: Sorry for texting so late, I couldn’t find my phone. I was wondering where you went

Hal: Can I see you sometime tomorrow?

Bruce released a tense sigh. Hal didn’t seem mad. He quickly tapped out a response.

Bruce: I’ll see if I can get Dick to help Alfred watch the younger kids tonight and let you know.

Bruce almost sent another message, something about how he and Hal needed to actually have a conversation instead of just making out, but he resisted the temptation. No doubt Hal was still sleeping, and would be for a while. Bruce could express his desire to speak about…whatever it was they were doing together later.

With this in mind, Bruce forced himself to put the phone down and get ready for his run.

* * *

That morning was pretty peaceful, but the day spiraled into chaos as soon as the kids started returning from the various places they’d spent the night.

Dick was the first to return, claiming to be starving and complaining about the fact that there was never any good cereal at Garth’s house. Then Tim and Duke returned from Bart’s house, walking in the door in the middle of an argument about whether or not Tim really kicked people in his sleep. Cassandra was the last to arrive, and Bruce was glad to see her, but she’d also brought Stephanie with her, and Stephanie was riled up and ready to drive Damian crazy. Jason appeared last, and was in such an unusually positive mood that Bruce couldn’t help but be a little alarmed. In short, he was so busy feeding kids, breaking up spats, and preventing Damian from putting glue in Stephanie’s hair that time escaped from him entirely. Lunch arrived and then was over, and Bruce still didn’t have a single moment to stop and see whether or not Hal had responded to his early morning text.

He did, however, get an opportunity to talk to Dick about helping Alfred watch the other kids. They were both down in the kitchen while Bruce was cleaning up after lunch and Dick was chattering away about some band Garth had introduced him to. He’d been talking for ten minutes straight without stopping, so Bruce only felt a little bit bad about interrupting him.

“Dick, do you think you could help Alfred watch the others tonight?” he asked.

Dick looked over at him, frowning as he asked, “You’re going somewhere?”

Bruce chose not to be offended by his skepticism.

“Yes, I’m going next door to talk about the new fence with Hal,” Bruce said. He’d already decided that lying about his whereabouts was pointless, not to mention irresponsible. Better for the kids to know where he was, even if they didn’t know the real reason for why he was there.

Dick made a face as he thought about it. He said, “Eh, I don’t know. Roy and I were going to go to the gym tonight and work out.”

“I’ll give you thirty dollars to help Alfred for two hours.”

Dick perked up and smiled.

“I’ll tell Roy I’m busy,” he said, and held his hand out.

Bruce frowned at the hand. “You get the money after you’ve helped Alfred, and that’s if nothing burns down while you’re watching them.”

Dick sighed, but was still smiling as he got up from the table.

“I’ll let you know when I’m leaving,” Bruce told him as he left the room.

Dick didn’t acknowledge him, but Bruce let him leave anyway.

Then the kitchen was empty except for him, and for a brief second he thought his chance to check his phone had come. But before Bruce could even reach for his back pocket Damian stalked into the room and demanded that Bruce expel “Cassandra’s acquaintance” from the house immediately. It took a while to get him to calm down, and also get to the root of his displeasure, which turned out to be that his cat had gone down to the basement to sit on Stephanie’s lap.

After that it was Duke claiming Bruce’s attention. Duke had a headache and wanted to know where the Advil was. It turned out they were out of Advil so they had to run to the pharmacy to get some. Then they got back and Bruce caught Cassandra and Tim trying to convince Damian that Santa Claus was real and household pets were his spies. Jason turned on his music while Bruce was scolding Cassandra and Tim, and when Bruce went up to tell him to turn it down, Jason claimed he only turned it on in the first place because everyone in the house was being so loud and annoying. Ordinarily Bruce would’ve had Alfred to help him manage the kids, but Alfred was busy planning the big neighborhood Thanksgiving gathering, so Bruce left him out of it and told the kids not to bother him either.

At some point during the afternoon, uncomfortable worries began to run through Bruce’s mind. Hal knew who he was, of course. He was aware of the fact that Bruce had six kids. But what Bruce wondered was whether or not Hal really understood what it _meant_ that Bruce had six kids. A whole day was passing and Bruce couldn’t even find a minute to check for a text. He’d lost romantic partners this way before; they wanted someone less complicated, someone who could devote most of their attention to them. For Bruce, the needs of his children had to come first.

Then again, he thought, maybe he was reading into it. Maybe Hal wasn’t interested in anything that wasn’t casual and brief. Unsurprisingly, this thought did little to soothe his concerns.

It was around 3 p.m. by the time his children’s reserves of chaotic energy began to run out. Tim and Duke went to the den to play video games, their earlier disagreement forgotten. Jason put on some more soothing music while he worked on his homework, and Damian took a nap next to Ace on the couch. Even Cassandra and Stephanie calmed down and went to have tea with Alfred in the library.

Bruce did not squander his opportunity to check his phone. He went to the back door and stepped out onto the porch, worried that if he didn’t remove himself from the house altogether he’d be swallowed by some new squabble between his children. Only then was he finally able to get out his phone and check to see if he had a message from Hal.

There were four texts from Hal. That morning at 10:38 he’d sent:

Hal: Sounds like a plan

Hal: I guess I should find somewhere else for Kyle to be then. I’ll see if he wants to go to the movies or something

Then, at 2:04 p.m. and 2:48 p.m.:

Hal: Sorry, change of plans. Something has come up with Kyle and it would be dickish of me to kick him out tonight

Hal: I could call you tonight instead?

Bruce was surprised at how disappointed he was. He tapped out his reply.

Bruce: I hope it’s nothing serious? I can talk tonight, but it’ll be a little late. It takes a while to get the kids to go to bed.

He sent the text. He was surprised all over again when he saw that Hal was already composing a response.

Hal: Nothing serious. Call me whenever, Kyle usually goes to his room around 9:30

Bruce acknowledged this and put his phone back in his pocket, but he did not go inside right away. Instead he stood on his back porch and looked out over his yard—Hal’s yard as well, since there was no barrier to stop him from doing so—and absorbed the silence for a moment, grateful in spite of his disappointment for a reprieve from the day’s chaos.

But he could not stay outside forever, so he eventually turned and went back into the house.

* * *

Dick was disappointed when he found out Bruce wasn’t going out after all, but since he was helpful that evening, Bruce wound up giving him the thirty dollars anyway. Thanks to Dick’s help, the kids all had their homework done early, and were getting for bed early as well. Bruce did have to go upstairs to take the Switch away from Tim, but after this Bruce was able to retreat to his own bedroom.

He got through his nightly routine fast, and was getting into bed just after 9:30. He searched for Hal’s contact and dialed.

Hal’s phone rang once, twice, three times—and then the line clicked.

There was the sound of some shuffling, and then, “Bruce?”

“Hi,” Bruce said.

He heard Hal let out a breath.

“Hey. Hold on. Let me shut the door real quick.”

There was more shuffling and the sound of a door shutting. There was the unmistakable squeak of an old bed frame, then Hal was back.

“Sorry about today,” he said.

“Is Kyle ok?” Bruce asked.

There was a moment of silence. Bruce eyed the window that faced Hal’s bedroom, but his blinds were shut, so there was nothing to see. It was maddening to know that Hal was so near and yet Bruce couldn’t just talk to him face to face.

“Yeah, Kyle’s fine,” Hal finally said.

Something about Hal’s tone didn’t convince Bruce, so he didn’t say anything.

“So,” Hal said, his voice lowered to a whisper, “this afternoon Kyle told me that he’s dating someone. A guy.”

Bruce raised his eyebrows, privately surprised. His own voice low, he asked, “Did he tell you he’s dating Jason?”

“What? You _knew_?”

“I’ve only known for about a week.”

“Jesus Christ, Bruce. Do you know everything?” Hal asked.

“Of course not,” Bruce said.

There was another beat of silence on the other line, and Hal said, “Well, he basically came out to me. I had no idea he was into dudes. I couldn’t just be like ok cool, now go to the movies.”

Bruce thought this was reasonable. He said, “That makes sense. You wouldn’t want to do anything that Kyle could misinterpret as a rejection.”

Another tiny breath. Bruce wondered if it pleased Hal to have Bruce agree with him.

“Anyway, what happened to you last night? Why’d you take off?” Hal asked.

“Michael Carter-Kord,” Bruce said.

“What about him?”

“He came over to talk to me while you were cleaning up the lamp. Then he noticed you, and he started looking too close at me, so I told him that I needed to go check on my kids and I left,” Bruce said.

“Oh. Well you were better off leaving anyway. That idiot Sodam drank too much and got sick, so I spent half the night babysitting him and trying to make sure he didn’t throw up on anyone.”

“He seems much younger than your other friends,” Bruce said.

“He’s 22.”

“ _Hal_ ,” Bruce said, appalled.

“What? Me and John and Guy like to keep an eye on him.”

Bruce couldn’t imagine being friends with anyone that young, but he didn’t have much time to dwell on it because Hal was speaking again.

“I was starting to get nervous when I didn’t hear from you today,” Hal said. “Anything going on?”

“No,” Bruce told him. “Just the kids being…well, in character, if I’m honest.”

“What were they doing?”

“Bickering. Complaining about being hungry. Making fun of each other. Fighting over the Switch.”

Hal snorted and asked, “That bad?”

“I guess they’ve had worse days.”

Hal didn’t say anything. The moment stretched on, and Bruce couldn’t help his mind from drifting back to earlier, to his worries about Hal and whether or not Hal understood what he was doing. The questions crawled up in his throat, begging to be asked. _What are we doing? Do you really want to get involved with me? Are we...keeping it a secret?_ Bruce had serious doubts about the longevity of such an arrangement. 

Bruce did not get a chance to ask anything, however.

Hal said, “I guess it’s going to be tough to see each other because of all of the kids. When are you going to be free?”

Bruce frowned and said, “I’m not sure. It’s difficult to be confident about my free time.”

Hal groaned and said, “God, Bruce, you’re killing me. Are you seriously saying you don’t _know_ when I can see you again?”

“You could come to Thanksgiving,” Bruce said.

There was a beat of silence and Hal said, “Huh?”

Bruce remembered too late that Hal had just moved in, and wasn’t familiar with all of the neighborhood’s traditions.

Bruce quickly explained, “On Friday. It’s something Alfred and I do for the neighborhood. Lots of the people who live here don’t have extended family members who live nearby, so Alfred and I invite people over to eat with us. Alfred does most of the hosting, to be honest, but you’re welcome to come and bring Kyle with you.”

There was more silence when Bruce stopped talking, and Bruce had a terrible span of seconds to wonder if he’d spooked Hal.

But Hal finally said, “Alright. You said Friday? What time?”

“The meal begins at 1. Or at least that is what Alfred promises every year,” Bruce said.

“Should I bring anything? Not that I can cook, but I can buy premade rolls at the grocery store.”

“Alfred would laugh at you, and then maybe throw you out,” Bruce said, unable to help a small smile at the thought. “But no, you don’t need to bring anything.”

“Hm, sounds too good to be true.”

“I promise there’s no catch,” Bruce said.

“You going to take me on a tour of your house?” Hal asked. Bruce couldn’t see him leering, but he could feel it.

“Not while my children are downstairs, no,” Bruce said.

Hal laughed.

The conversation meandered after that. They talked about other neighborhood traditions Hal might not know about, and Bruce told Hal things he should know about the other neighbors. Then the conversation somehow got onto the topic of hockey and Hal promptly insulted Bruce’s hockey team, so they bickered about that for a while. They talked about the kids, and Kyle, and Alan Scott, and Hal’s job, and a host of other topics Bruce couldn’t even remember in the morning.

Those questions and doubts did trickle back into Bruce's head while they talked, but in the end Bruce kept them to himself. It was nice to talk to somebody about nothing in particular. He didn’t want to ruin it.

At last, Bruce glanced at his alarm clock and was shocked to see it was past midnight. He and Hal said good night not too long after that, and Bruce was so tired he promptly fell fast asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've gone back to work and I am like, exhausted all the time so no promises about when the next chapter is coming.
> 
> Also, I'm not sure how many more chapters are left in this fic (maybe 5), but I am determined to finish it.


	16. Chapter 16

Bruce regretted inviting Hal to Thanksgiving almost immediately.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see Hal, because of course he did. How much he wanted to see Hal was the problem, in fact. Alfred kept Bruce busy all week with Thanksgiving preparations, so there was no time for Bruce to go talk to Hal in person. They talked on the phone most nights, but often Bruce was too tired from a rigorous schedule of cleaning, baking, errands, and other odd assignments from Alfred to talk to Hal for long. More and more Hal consumed Bruce’s thoughts, to the point where he feared it would be near impossible to treat Hal as if he was just another neighbor.

But the invitation had already been extended, and Bruce rescinding it was out of the question.

Actual Thanksgiving Day passed with very little fuss, and Friday dawned as a bright, beautiful morning. Bruce awoke feeling more eagerness than dread. The morning hours passed in a chaotic blur as he and Alfred rushed through last minute preparations, and Bruce was just finished getting dressed for company when he heard the doorbell ring for the first time.

Of course, it was too much to hope that Hal and Kyle would be the first to arrive, and that Bruce would get a moment to talk to Hal before the rest of the guests came over. Instead, Bruce came around the upstairs corner and looked down the staircase to see that Barry, Iris, and the boys had arrived first, as usual.

“Hi Bruce!” Barry said, spotting him at the top of the stairs.

Tim had answered the door and was already engaged in conversation with Bart. They left the front hallway without acknowledging any of the rest of them, Bart speaking a mile a minute as they went.

“Hi Barry,” Bruce said, and looked to Iris and Wally, nodding at them both. “Hello Iris, Wally.”

“Hello Bruce. We brought sweet potatoes,” she said, nodding at the casserole dish Barry was holding.

Bruce held back a sigh. Every year he reminded the guests not to bring anything, and every year the guests ignored the reminder. They were always throwing off Alfred’s carefully planned meal.

Bruce managed a smile and said, “You didn’t need to, but thank you. You can take—”

The doorbell rang again, interrupting Bruce’s sentence.

“Alfred’s in the kitchen. You can drop the sweet potatoes off with him. Wally, Dick’s upstairs in his room,” Bruce said, then went around the group to welcome the next arrivals.

Unfortunately, it was not Hal at the door next. It was the Vasquez family, however, and Bruce was happy to see them all.

“Hello Victor, Rosa,” Bruce said, and stepped aside to let them all in, greeting the kids as they passed. Billy and Freddy were too busy bickering about something to notice, and Eugene was distracted by some handheld video game console, but Mary, Pedro, and even baby Darla waved at him as they came in.

Bruce was about to shut the door again, but he saw that the Stones and John Jones and his niece had just passed the driveway. And so Bruce spent the next ten minutes, greeting neighbors as they all descended on the house at once, most of them carrying bottles of wine or casserole dishes. Bruce greeted Giovanni and his daughter Zatara, then Alec and the Queens. The Reyes family arrived at the same time as the Kents, and then it was the Carter-Kords ringing the doorbell, and after them Scott and Barda. Ray Palmer had run into Diana and the girls as he left his house, so they all arrived as a group. As per usual, the Curry family was extremely late.

But there was still no sign of Hal and Kyle.

Bruce patted his pockets for his phone, wondering if Hal had sent him a message about some schedule conflict, but didn’t find it. Bruce was just about to go look for it when he heard the sound of voices outside the door, and then his pulse started thrumming all over again. He recognizes those voices.

Bruce waited until they knocked, and then he went over to open the door, revealing Hal and Kyle behind it at long last.

Hal was more dressed up than usual in slacks and an emerald green shirt. He and Hal made eye contact, and for a moment Bruce was so overawed by seeing his face again that he had absolutely nothing to say.

Then Kyle said, “Hey Mr. Wayne,” and jolted Bruce back into his senses.

Bruce looked down at Kyle, who was also dressed nicely in black jeans and a black, white, and green plaid shirt. He said, “Hello Kyle. It’s nice to see you.”

“Sorry we’re late,” Hal said. “Kyle was fussing about his hair.”

Kyle shot him a dirty look and said, “So were you.”

Bruce suppressed a smirk and told Kyle, “Jason’s been waiting for you. He’s upstairs in his room hanging out with Connor.”

“Cool,” Kyle said, and did not wait for an invitation to go around Bruce and enter the house.

Bruce looked back to Hal, distantly hearing the sound of Kyle’s footsteps booming up the stairs.

“Hi,” Hal said, smiling at him.

“Hi,” Bruce said.

_This is a mistake_ , Bruce thought.

Hal’s smile widened. He pointed inside the house and said, “Can I come in?”

“Yes,” Bruce said, and stepped out of the way. “Forgive me, of course you can come in.”

Hal scraped the soles of his boots on the doormat before he stepped into the house. Bruce shut the door behind him and turned to catch Hal examining the front hallway. He’d been over before, Bruce remembered, but just the one time on the night Kyle arrived. It had been dark then, and there’d been no lights on in the front entryway. Hal probably hadn’t seen much.

Hal’s eyes traveled around the walls and up the stairs, then his gaze made it back down to one of the guests standing in the entrance to the kitchen. It was Ray, and he was holding a tinfoil-covered pie. Ray was too busy trying to get into the kitchen to notice Bruce and Hal lingering by the front door.

Hal turned back to Bruce, pointing at the pie. He said, “You told me I didn’t need to bring anything.”

“You don’t,” Bruce said, keeping his voice low. “Alfred hates it when people bring things, but everyone always does. Which makes him sound ungrateful, I know, but he gets very particular about some things.”

“Like father like son?” Hal asked cheekily.

Bruce gazed at him, not sure whether he wanted to sigh or kiss him.

He didn’t do either. It required more than a little effort to turn away from him, but he started walking, gesturing at Hal to follow.

“Come get some wine. Everybody brought plenty,” Bruce told him.

“Wine sounds great,” Hal said, and followed Bruce into the kitchen.

Their arrival did not go unnoticed. Some of the neighbors did a doubletake when they looked at Hal, their expressions surprised and mystified to see him.

“My man!” Barry said, going right over to him. He clapped a hand on Hal’s shoulder. “It’s good to see you.”

“Hey Barry,” Hal said, grinning at him. “Happy Thanksgiving.”

“Happy Thanksgiving!”

Oliver and Dinah came over to greet Hal next, and then Michael and Ted, and then Iris. All the sudden there was a wall of people between him and Bruce.

“What kind of wine do you want, Hal?” Bruce asked him, raising his voice to be heard over all of the other people clamoring to talk to him.

Bruce was gratified when Hal physically turned toward his voice, ignoring whatever Ted was saying to look over at Bruce and tell him, “Uh, surprise me?”

Bruce nodded and left to go fetch his wine. 

Bruce returned with a glass of pinot noir and managed to hand it to Hal through the crowd without spilling any of it. Once again, Hal turned toward him when he came back and thanked him, briefly ignoring whoever was talking to him in favor of Bruce. Perhaps they made eye contact for too long; Bruce wasn’t sure and could only hope no one had noticed.

When this task was done, Bruce returned to Alfred and his duties as host.

* * *

The dining room in the Wayne household was large, but it wasn’t so large that all of the guests fit around the table. As a result, some of them always ended up sitting around the kitchen table instead. Since it was mostly the children that ended up in the kitchen, Bruce usually ended up in the kitchen too most years so he could keep an eye on them. After a couple of years—without Bruce asking him too—Clark started eating with him and the kids in the kitchen as well.

So it wasn’t a surprise when Bruce ended up in the kitchen and Hal in the dining room, but Bruce still felt almost comically disappointed about it. While he ate and listened to Clark talk about something that happened at work and helped the smaller children cut their food into more manageable portions, Bruce thought about how it was probably a good thing that he and Hal were separated during the meal. Separated, there were fewer opportunities for one or both of them to do or say something that would give their secret away. But hearing the occasional sound of Hal’s laugh drifting over from the dining room distracted him so much that he heard maybe a third of Clark’s work story.

After the meal Bruce was busy still cleaning up, clearing plates off tables and packing food into Tupperware containers for people to take home with them. Other guests meandered back into the den to watch a football game, but Clark stuck to Bruce’s side, assisting with cleanup as he chattered away about Lois and the boys and the Daily Planet. As usual he didn’t require Bruce’s participation in the conversation to keep it moving along, but Bruce did throw out the occasional grunt and said “right” and “of course” every once in a while to at least give the appearance of paying attention.

Then Clark said, “Boy, you really are distracted today.”

Bruce looked across the kitchen island at him, frowning. “I beg your pardon?”

“I just asked you if you thought I should paint my house blue. You just kept nodding and saying ‘Yeah, that sounds great.’ Did you trip and hit your head while out running this morning?”

Bruce frowned at him and said, “There’s a lot going on today. That’s all.” 

“Of course,” Clark said. He didn’t sound offended. Bruce watched him wipe down a casserole dish with a damp rag, and he asked, “So what’s on your mind? Anything in particular?”

“No,” Bruce said.

Clark finished drying the casserole dish, and picked up a wet plate from a stack of clean ones. He said, “I guess I have been talking about myself for a while now. How’s the dating app thing going?”

Bruce hesitated before answering, all too conscious of the fact that Hal was just in the other room. He’d been talking to Barry in the den the last time Bruce saw him, but there were so many people in the house and so much going on that it was difficult to keep track of anyone’s whereabouts.

“I deleted them,” Bruce finally told Clark.

“Really?” Clark said. “What for?”

“I decided I’m not really the dating apps kind of person.”

“That’s too bad. You’ll have to try some other way, then. There are still singles nights, right? Speed dating? Professional matchmaker? I think the paper did a story about professional matchmakers not too long ago. I can look it up and email it to you.”

“I do not need or want a professional matchmaker, Clark,” Bruce said, his voice firm.

“I’m surprised you haven’t met a single parent in the PTA who’s tried to snap you up.”

There had been a few parents who’d made attempts—and not all of them single—but Bruce did not volunteer this information.

“I’m taking a break from all of that,” Bruce said.

A new voice asked, “From all of what?”

Bruce looked around and saw that Diana had joined them. She was carrying a stack of dirty plates from the dining room. Bruce didn’t answer her question.

“You went on one date,” Clark said. “You barely tried to meet anyone!”

Diana’s eyes darted between Clark and Bruce, confused. She asked, “You went on a date? With who?”

Bruce scanned the chatting guests lingering in the kitchen, checking to make sure Hal was not among them before he quickly explained, “One of Clark’s coworkers. She got back together with her ex-wife.”

Diana looked disappointed for him as she took the dishes over to the sink. She said, “I am sorry that it did not work out.”

“It was only one date,” Bruce said. His tone was a little sharper than was polite, but he did not want to talk about this. He didn’t want to talk about anyone he’d dated for any length of time when Hal was wandering around his house somewhere.

“It is difficult to date at our age,” Diana said thoughtfully, leaving the plates in the sink. “The museum and Donna and Cassie take up most of my time. I have not been on a date in weeks.”

Bruce didn’t say anything, but it soon became apparent that he didn’t need to. Clark started talking about how hard it was to spend time with just Lois, and how he was hoping that they’d have more time to go out together once Jon was older and Conner was old enough to look after him. This somehow led to Diana talking about how Donna had been going on a lot of dates lately, although she apparently wasn’t interested in anyone in particular. Then Clark started talking about how Conner was starting to get interested in dating and Clark was dreading that next stage of his life.

Bruce was not allowed to be a passive participant in the conversation for long, however.

“You agree with me, right Diana?” Clark asked. “Bruce should date more.”

Diana considered this and shrugged her shoulders. She told Bruce, “I do not think you should let your recent experience with Clark’s coworker discourage you.”

Bruce wanted to say that he wasn’t letting him discourage him. He wanted to say that he desired nothing more than to talk to Hal, and that it was driving him crazy that Hal was in his house and he couldn’t talk to him for fear of what everyone else would think.

But he didn’t say any of this. Instead, he turned and pulled off his apron before he headed for the door. 

“Where are you going?” Clark asked him.

“I’m going to make sure Alfred doesn’t need anything,” Bruce said, and left the kitchen.

* * *

Later—after the cleanup was mostly done but before the guests started asking about dessert—Bruce ended up outside in the backyard.

Some of the younger kids wanted to play with the dog, and since there was no fence between his yard and Hal’s (and the swampy excuse for a pool in Hal’s yard) Bruce took a beer out to the porch and sat down to keep an eye on them.

It was a beautiful day, clear and crisp and not too cold. Ace was overjoyed by all of the attention, but Damian got annoyed at the other children and came up to the patio to sit in Bruce’s lap and glare at them from afar. The children were laughing and shrieking as they played with the dog, but Bruce was so grateful for the reprieve from Clark’s insistent pestering about his love life that he barely noticed all the noise.

Damian was still sitting in his lap when the back door opened. Bruce looked over his shoulder and his pulse quickened when he saw Hal stepping through the doorway and out onto the porch. He shut the door behind him and came over to sit in one of the patio chairs next to Bruce. Like Bruce, he had a beer bottle in his hand.

“What are you doing out here?” Hal asked.

“Somebody has to keep an eye on the kids. Your pool is a death trap,” Bruce told him.

Hal looked over at his pool, squinting in bright sunlight.

“Yeah, I’ve been meaning to get that looked at. I could get a pool cover if you’re worried about—” Hal didn’t finish the sentence, but nodded in Damian’s direction.

Bruce looked from Hal down to Damian and noticed that Damian had transferred his glare from the other children to Hal. One of his hands was clenched in the fabric of Bruce’s shirt as well, but he didn’t say anything.

“Alfred and I never let Damian go out to the backyard alone, but I appreciate that,” Bruce said.

Hal nodded and drank a sip of beer.

They sat in companionable silence for a while, listening to the sounds of the children playing and the murmur of chatter in the house.

“You know that conversation we were having last week?” Hal asked.

“You’ll have to be more specific,” Bruce said. They’d had a lot of conversations over the past week.

“The one about Kyle and Jason?”

“Oh,” Bruce said. “Yes. What about it?”

Hal glanced down at Damian, who was still glaring at him, but continued.

“Kyle said something interesting to me earlier. He said that I shouldn’t bring it up because it’s not common knowledge in your house,” Hal said. “I found that surprising, since you were aware of what was going on before I was.”

Bruce waited for him to get to the point.

“Why does Kyle think you don’t know?” Hal asked.

“Because Jason hasn’t told me,” Bruce said, and turned his attention back to the children.

“But you do know.”

“Teenagers are never half as sneaky as they think they are,” Bruce explained. “He talked to Alfred, but not to me.”

“Oh,” Hal said.

He sounded so surprised that Bruce looked over at him again. There was a strained, almost pitying look on Hal’s face.

Bruce said, “Not yet, I mean. He’ll talk to us eventually. Kyle was smart to tell you to keep it to yourself. Jason is a private person and the others are nosy. He would hate for it to become common knowledge before he was ready.”

“I see,” Hal said.

For a few minutes they returned to their companionable silence. Bruce wanted to say something to him, but Damian was there listening, and he was still kind of in a bad mood from his conversation with Clark earlier. He wasn’t sure what to say.

Fortunately, Hal always had something to say. 

“There’s lots of kids in this neighborhood, but also lots of kids who don’t look like their parents. Like Victor and Rosa’s kids, for example,” he said.

“Like me, Victor and Rosa are foster parents. Unlike me, none of their kids are their biological children. They’re all foster children,” Bruce said.

“Which ones are theirs again?” Hal asked.

Bruce pointed them out: baby Darla sitting on the ground playing with Jon and Milagro, all of them babbling in a language understandable only to toddlers. Then he pointed out Freddy and Mary, who’d made it up to sit in the old tree house with Jaime. Pedro was on the tire swing. Eugene was the only Vasquez child not outside, and Bruce explained that he was probably in the house playing video games with Tim.

Bruce went on to tell Hal that Jaime and Milagro were not foster children, and neither was Jon Kent. But Conner Kent—who in all ways looked as if he could be Clark’s son—was actually not his son, but instead a distant relation, like a second cousin or something.

Hal had more questions about other neighbors after that. After Bruce explained about the Queens, the Allens, and the Currys, he dropped the bombshell that Diana was not actually Donna and Cassie’s mother.

“Donna isn’t Diana’s daughter? I kind of figured about Cassie. I mean, blonde hair doesn’t come from nowhere. But Donna?”

“Donna is Diana’s sister,” Bruce said. “Cassie is Diana’s niece.”

This set Hal off on a rant about how everyone in the neighborhood was trying to be as confusing as possible. Bruce pointed out that Hal had no right to complain since he’d taken in his godson. Hal used the fact that he hadn’t adopted Kyle as justification for it not being confusing.

They were still bickering about it and Bruce’s mood was slowly improving when he heard the back door open again. All at once he remembered that there was a party going on—a party in his house—and he’d been ignoring his guests entirely to sit on the back porch and gossip about the neighbors with Hal.

He only felt a little bit bad about it.

Bruce turned, expecting to see Alfred or maybe Victor or Rosa, but instead there was a crowd. Clark, Diana, Barry, Dinah, Oliver, and John all came out onto the back porch holding glasses of wine or beer bottles and, without waiting to be invited, began dragging other patio chairs closer to where Bruce and Hal were sitting. They all sat down and got comfortable, and something about it all seemed ominous to Bruce.

“What were you two talking about?” Diana asked them.

“We were talking you all, actually,” Hal said, and waived his pointer finger around at them.

“Us? What for?” Barry asked, looking wounded.

“Hal was just asking me about the kids. About how almost everyone in the neighborhood is adopting their children or they’re foster parents, not having biological children,” Bruce said.

“Well not _everyone_ in the neighborhood,” Clark said. “Alberto and Bianca are Jaime and Milagro’s biological parents, and Silas and Elinore are Victor’s biological parents. Also, Jon is my biological son.”

Clark stopped there, a pained, thoughtful look on his face, and everyone waited expectantly for another example.

“And Damian is your biological son,” Clark said, pointing at Damian.

At this, Damian let go of Bruce’s shirt and slid out of Bruce’s arms. He gave the assembled adults—Bruce included—an irritated look before he turned and went into the house.

“Yes, the family resemblance is very strong,” Hal said when Damian was gone, and the rest of them snickered. Bruce rolled his eyes.

“Hey man,” Barry said, and tapped Hal on the arm. “Did you figure out what was wrong with your bike yet?”

Hal looked over at Barry, and in the same moment Diana turned to Bruce and said, “It was a lovely meal, Bruce. Thank you for hosting every year.”

“Alfred does most of the work,” Bruce said, but added, “but you’re welcome.” 

“He’s a great cook,” Clark said. “I’ll have to ask him what he puts in the mashed potatoes. I know there’s something in there that makes them taste so distinctive, but I cannot for the life of me figure it out. He was cagey when I asked him earlier.”

Bruce made no promises to give away Alfred’s secrets.

After that the conversation meandered away from the topic of food and Hal’s motorcycle to a variety of other subjects. Bruce resisted the pull of the conversation and instead resumed his now less-than-peaceful meditation as he silently kept an eye on the kids.

At one point, Milagro toddled over to the patio and presented Bruce with a leaf she’d found on the ground. Bruce accepted this gift and she was just wandering back to Darla and Jon when he heard Barry mentioned his name.

“To be honest I’m shocked Bruce is being so patient about it,” Barry was telling Hal.

Bruce looked over at them, still holding the leaf from Milagro, and said, “I’m sorry?” 

The expression on Hal’s face was pained as Barry gestured to his yard and said, “The fence.”

Bruce narrowed his eyes at Barry and said, “That’s between Hal and myself.”

“Yeah, but isn’t it in the HOA agreement?” Barry asked. “How long has it been down now? Two weeks? Three? I got a letter when part of my fence came down.”

“Also the pool,” Oliver said.

“Oh yeah, there is a part of the HOA agreement about pools,” Barry said.

Their tones were light, and Bruce was accustomed to a certain amount of playful ribbing from his oldest neighbors, but this particular topic put him on edge. Surely it didn’t take too much imagination to work out that Hal hadn’t fixed his pool because he couldn’t afford it.

“You had a notice printed and put into my mailbox the day after I started building my shed,” Barry said, going on. “It said that I’d violated the HOA agreement by not getting approval to build it first. A list of acceptable paint colors was included. It was approved anyway of course, but still.”

Bruce said nothing, hoping Barry would drop it if he remained stonily silent, but like a nightmare that wouldn’t end the rest of them started chiming in about all the times Bruce had come down on them with various HOA agreement violations. Only Hal remained silent, his gaze flashing nervously between Bruce and the others.

Then Diana and Barry brought up Alan.

“I never could tell why you disliked each other so much,” Diana said, frowning. “I always got along with him.”

“Remember the time he left his Christmas decorations up for too long?” Barry asked. “Bruce sent him a letter about that too, so he decided he’d leave them up out of spite. We had to look at ugly icicle Christmas lights until June.”

“He took them down on his own. At last,” Clark said, with a small sigh.

“But then he’d mix up decorations on purpose,” Oliver said.

“Oh yeah!” Barry said, his eyes lighting up.

Bruce did not need them to remind him of the year when Alan had put out the wrong yard décor for every holiday. Bruce was pretty sure Alan bought most of it for the sole purpose of bothering him.

“Scott and Barda told me they got a letter because they had a broken down car parked in their driveway for too long,” John said, and across the circle Clark was telling a story about a time when he got a letter about remembering to take in his trash can after trash days. Barry was starting another infamous Bruce vs. Alan anecdote, leaning over to speak primarily to Hal, who hadn’t experienced it like the rest of them. It was all abruptly too much for Bruce to handle.

“I’ve been thinking the HOA should be disbanded,” Bruce said.

He didn’t think he’d said this very loud, but everyone who had been talking suddenly stopped talking and looked at him.

Truthfully, this wasn’t something Bruce had been thinking about, but now that he’d said it the idea was making more and more sense. He was surprised when Clark, Barry, Dinah, and Oliver all looked at him like he’d said something insane.

“Come again?” Clark said.

“Was I unclear when I spoke?” Bruce asked him.

“Are you suggesting to get rid of the agreement completely?” Dinah asked.

“Yes,” Bruce said.

“Did you get body-snatched?” Barry asked. “You love the HOA agreement.”

“There are plenty of rules about what you can and can’t do in the city ordinances. Stacking an HOA agreement on top of that does seem redundant, doesn’t it?” he asked.

Bruce thought this was a reasonable thing to say, but everyone’s faces just got more bewildered than before. Except for Hal’s. There was an odd, sort of blank look on Hal’s face that Bruce didn’t know how to read.

“What got you thinking this?” Clark asked Bruce.

“All of those years fighting with Alan about his house didn’t achieve anything,” Bruce said. “Except making him dislike me and provoking him into wanting to make me madder. I think everyone in the neighborhood is responsible enough to care for their house as they see fit.”

He wanted to add, _Not everyone in the neighborhood can afford to throw money at a new fence or at getting their pool fixed, and it’s unreasonable to expect anything of the sort._

Bruce did not say this out loud, but when he looked across the circle he noticed that Clark was looking not at Bruce but at Hal.

“Ok, revising it, I can see that. But getting rid of it altogether? _Have_ you been body-snatched?” Barry asked again.

“No,” Bruce said, not sure why he was answering such an absurd question.

Barry was just opening his mouth to say something else when Hal suddenly got up from his chair and bolted away from their group on the porch. They all stopped and watched him as he ran across the yard and snatched up Milagro.

Bruce had been so focused on the argument about the HOA that he had forgotten about keeping an eye on the kids. Right under his nose, Milagro had wandered out of Bruce’s yard and into Hal’s yard. Hal, fortunately, had spotted her before she got too far.

Hal walked back over carrying her awkwardly with his hands under her armpits. It was obvious he didn’t have a lot of experience holding small children.

“Sorry about that,” Hal said when he returned to the group. “I guess I really do need that pool cover.”

Milagro squirmed and complained, but Hal didn’t set her down.

“We should probably take the kids inside,” Clark said, frowning as he got up to go get Jon.

Everyone was so busy rounding up the kids that the conversation about the HOA was dropped, but the subject did not leave Bruce’s mind so easily.

* * *

Much later—when the guests were packing up their casserole dishes and looking for their coats—Hal cornered Bruce.

Bruce wasn’t quite sure how he managed it. One minute Bruce was alone in the laundry room searching for the flatware chest in the cabinet, and the next Hal was turning him around and kissing him.

The kiss was long enough to take his breath away, but still far too brief. Hal was pulling away before Bruce had time to kiss him back.

Bruce’s eyes flashed toward the laundry room door, seeing that Hal had cracked it as he came in.

“What are you doing? Someone could have seen us,” Bruce said.

Hal ignored this and asked, “When can I see you again? Not with a bunch of neighbors and kids around next time, just you and me.”

“I’m not sure,” Bruce said, surprised.

“Well, you’d better figure it out,” Hal said, raising his eyebrows. He leaned in again and for a second Bruce thought that Hal was going to kiss him again. He wanted Hal to kiss him again.

But Hal pulled away from him and left the laundry room. By the time Bruce found the flatware chest and returned to the kitchen, Hal and Kyle had already gone home for the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I haven't been responding to comments lately. I do appreciate them more than I can express!


	17. Chapter 17

Bruce figured out fast that he had very little self-control where Hal was concerned. Over the next few days he became all but obsessed with his phone. He kept it with him constantly so he’d know at once if Hal texted him, and this was only exacerbated by the fact that Hal did text him all the time. There were even a couple of times when Hal was able to cajole Bruce into coming over so they could make out in his garage. Bruce was somewhat mortified by his own lack of restraint.

But clandestine trysts in Hal’s garage and a never-ending text conversation were not enough to satiate Bruce’s need to see Hal. So, over a week after the Thanksgiving party, he texted Hal and asked him if he wanted to go out to dinner on Saturday night. Hal immediately texted back to say yes.

Bruce was determined that nothing was going to come between him and his date, so he broached the topic on Wednesday while he was eating lunch with Alfred.

“I’m going to be out of the house on Saturday evening. Do you think you can you handle the kids on your own?” he asked.

“Of course I can,” Alfred said. Then, because he was Alfred and a busybody, he asked, “Are your plans of a businesslike nature, or will you be pursuing an evening of leisure?”

“Leisure,” Bruce said.

Alfred raised his eyebrows and said, “Indeed? Do you have plans with Clark? Some kind of sporting event, perhaps?”

Bruce shot him a humorless look and asked, “Will my answer to this question inhibit your ability to watch the kids?”

Alfred lowered his fork and gave Bruce an assessing look.

“I’m going on a date,” Bruce said.

Alfred’s eyebrows shot up even higher. “Oh? With whom?”

“Someone I’ve been talking to mostly through phone messages.”

Alfred frowned. “This is an online dating situation?”

Not wanting to outright lie, Bruce grunted.

Alfred seemed to accept this as an answer because he didn’t press Bruce further.

“Well, I am happy to hear that you have decided to resume dating. I did not think that a solitary existence was good for your state of mind,” Alfred said.

Bruce did not respond, but instead ate his chicken and watched Alfred for a moment. An interesting thought had occurred to him suddenly.

“You know that you don’t have to be solitary either,” Bruce said. “Right Alfred?”

Alfred shot him a perplexed look.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Plenty of people get married or remarried later in life. You and Clark are always pestering me about my love life, but when was the last time you went on a date?” Bruce asked.

Alfred’s expression went from perplexed to stern in an instant.

“I think I manage my social life quite well, Bruce,” he said.

Bruce couldn’t help but smirk a little bit, but he dropped the subject for the time being.

* * *

After one of the longest weeks of his life, Saturday evening and the time for Bruce’s date with Hal arrived.

Bruce wasn’t completely sure what the kids were up to that evening. He’d tried to ask Alfred about it before he left, but Alfred shooed him out the door without giving him an answer. He trusted Alfred more than anyone else he knew, but it was still strange to go out and not know how his children would be spending the evening.

However, Bruce’s concerns went out of his mind when he walked through the door of Falconi’s and saw Hal standing at the bar near the hostess stand.

Hal smiled when he made eye contact with Bruce and walked over to greet Bruce with a kiss. He was wearing his familiar flight jacket, but had on slacks and a dressier than usual blue button-down on underneath it.

“Hey Bruce,” Hal said.

“Hi,” Bruce said.

Hal looked away from him, and Bruce watched him examine the restaurant.

“This is a nice place,” Hal said.

Falconi’s had been a favorite of Bruce’s parents before they died. It was a grand, old-fashioned place with a furnishings and décor that were heavily influenced by the days of prohibition and art deco.

Before Bruce could respond to this observation, however, the host said, “Sirs, your table is ready.”

Bruce and Hal followed him, passing tables of well-dressed people dripping with pearls and expensive watches. The table Bruce had asked for when he called to make his reservation was in a secluded, private corner of the restaurant lit up by candlelight and a lone hanging light fixture that cast a soft glow over the table.

This was part of a routine from Bruce’s younger years, when he went on dates more often. The romantic ambiance of the secluded table at the fancy restaurant made most of Bruce’s dates feel special. This, Bruce remembered as he and Hal sat down across from each other, hadn’t worked on Selina or Talia at all. Hal didn’t seem flustered or annoyed by the fact that Bruce had brought him there, but there was something about the blankness of his expression that gave Bruce an idea he wasn’t quite impressed.

Unfortunately, after Bruce and Hal were seated and the host departed, they fell into an awkward silence.

Bruce picked up the wine menu while Hal began to look through the entrees. Bruce scanned prices next to wine bottles. He’d forgotten how expensive Falconi’s was.

“Would you share a bottle of wine with me if I ordered one?” Bruce asked him.

“Sure,” Hal said, glancing up at Bruce for a moment before looking back down at the menu again.

“Any preferences?” Bruce asked.

“I’m not much of a wine drinker. I’m sure whatever you choose will be great.”

Bruce grunted his acknowledgement and went back to evaluating the choices.

“So how’d you ditch all the kids?” Hal asked him.

“I’m not sure,” Bruce said. “Alfred said he’d take care of it.”

“You told Alfred?”

Bruce looked up at him and they made eye contact.

“I said I was going out. I didn’t tell him who I was going out with,” Bruce clarified.

Hal nodded, but the expression on his face was hard to read. Before Bruce had the chance to examine it further, Hal looked away.

“How’d you ditch Kyle?” Bruce asked.

“I told him I was going out and that he should call me if it’s an emergency.”

“Oh,” Bruce said.

Bruce hadn’t meant to sound in any way judgmental, but Hal seemed to need to provide justification.

“He is fifteen. Also he made himself an Uber Eats account with my credit card. He’ll be fine,” Hal said.

“I’m sure he will be,” Bruce agreed.

At that point their waiter arrived, and Bruce got a break from maintaining the conversation while they ordered drinks, appetizers, and finally entrees.

But eventually they had drinks and appetizers, and then it was time all over again for Bruce to figure out what to say to Hal. He wondered at the fact that he could talk to Hal via text messages from dawn to dusk, but now that they were face to face his mind was blank.

“Do you come to this restaurant often?” Hal asked. He was looking straight up, examining one of the red, black, and white stained glass windows set into the ceiling.

“Not often. Just for special occasions,” Bruce said. “Birthdays, celebratory dinners. Dates.”

“Oh. Makes sense,” Hal said thoughtfully, and looked back down at Bruce again.

He was definitely not impressed, Bruce thought.

“This restaurant was one of my parents’ favorites. We used to come eat here on my mother’s birthday every year,” he told Hal.

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Bruce regretted them.

Hal frowned and asked, “Alfred and your mom?”

“Alfred is not my biological father,” Bruce said.

Hal’s frown deepened and he cocked his head. “He’s not?”

“He adopted me when I was eight. I consider him to be my father, but we are not blood relations.”

“Oh,” Hal said. “I didn’t know that. I thought all this time he was your real dad. I mean, your biological dad.”

They fell silent again, but Bruce could read Hal well enough now to be able to tell when he was holding something back. He wanted to know. Everybody always wanted to know whenever Bruce made the mistake of bringing up his parents.

“My parents were both killed when I was child. A burglar broke into the house expecting us all to be out of town. But they were home, and when they got up to go investigate the burglar panicked and shot them. A neighbor heard and called 911, but they were both already gone by the time help arrived,” Bruce said.

Hal looked shocked.

“Jesus. You weren’t…?”

“No,” Bruce said, shaking his head. “I wasn’t home. I was spending that month at a summer academy in Pennsylvania. My mother wasn’t close with her own family and my father didn’t have any close living relatives, so Alfred was the one who took me in. He was an old friend of my father’s.”

“Wow,” Hal said. “That’s—”

“It was a long time ago,” Bruce said, interrupting him. He’d heard every imaginable platitude—he felt no need to hear them from Hal. 

Fortunately their food arrived then, and when the waiter was gone and they were both eating, something in Hal’s demeanor seemed to shift.

He must've been able to tell that Bruce did not want to linger over the topic of his parents, because he changed the subject and began telling Bruce about his dissatisfaction with one of the engineers at his work. There was something mechanical that he’d disagreed with this coworker about, but the man wouldn’t accept Hal’s expertise.

“…I tried talking to Carol about it, of course, but she wouldn’t hear any of it. She said that I’m still pining over Tom. So I told her that if she doesn’t send this idiot back to school I’ll just work on the jet myself. I’m already having to double check his work anyway, so I might as well cut out the middle man.” 

Bruce had several questions, but his first was, “Tom?”

“Tom Kalmaku. You’ve probably seen him before because he gives me rides to work sometimes. Great engineer. Carol made him her business partner last year. And yeah, she’s right, he’s doing a great job running the company with her, but I miss the peace of mind knowing he was the one who built the machine I have to take into the air.”

“So you also work on the planes?” Bruce asked.

Hal shot him a bemused look over his dinner.

“I have a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering, so yes, I do work on the planes. Not officially, of course. My official title with the company is test pilot, but if I work on a jet here and there no one complains about it too much,” Hal said.

It was Bruce’s turn to be shocked.

“You have a master’s degree?”

“I’m a little insulted by your incredulity.”

“Forgive me, I meant—”

“I’m just messing with you, Bruce,” Hal said, waving him off.

There was another moment of silence while he and Hal ate and everything Bruce thought he knew about Hal reassembled itself in his head.

“May I ask a personal question?” Bruce asked.

“This is a date, so it would be weird if you didn’t,” Hal said.

“If you have a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering then how did you end up becoming a police officer?” Bruce asked.

Hal stiffened, almost imperceptibly, and Bruce regretted asking. He’d guessed from what Guy had told him that this was a sore subject, but apparently he’d underestimated how sore it was.

“The easiest answer is the housing market crash of 2008. I was finally graduating right when the economy went to shit. I had— _have_ —a ton of student loan debt and not a whole lot of people were hiring aeronautical engineers or test pilots. But cities don’t ever quit hiring police officers,” Hal said.

“And that is how you met John Stewart and Guy Gardner,” Bruce said.

Some of the tension went out of Hal and he said, “Yeah.” The word almost sounded like a sigh.

There was another beat of silence during which Bruce wondered how to get the conversation moving on past the uncomfortable topic.

But Hal did not need any of Bruce’s help in this regard.

“Anyway,” Hal said, his tone brighter, “It was time for a change. I was itching to get back in the air again. Nothing compares to flying.”

“I have a pilot’s license as well, in fact. I didn’t do much flying, but I enjoyed it,” Bruce said.

Hal shot him an astonished look.

“You can fly a plane?”

“My license is probably expired now, but—”

“What the hell, Bruce!” Hal said, interrupting him. This outburst was so loud that some of the people at the tables closest to them turned and shot Hal disapproving looks.

“What?” Bruce said, confused.

“You basically scolded me for talking about my job in front of your kids that one time, and now you’re telling me that you have a pilot’s license?” Hal said.

“Just because I know how to fly a plane doesn’t mean I want my children doing it.”

Hal sighed and said, “You’re unbelievable,” but it didn’t sound like he meant it in a bad way.

Bruce was about to explain _how_ he’d ended up with a pilot license, but before he could begin something snagged his attention.

There was a man and a woman being seated at a table not far from theirs. Bruce stared at them, more at the man than at the woman, though she was indeed quite lovely. The man was wearing an expensive black suit and had a full head of dark hair. There was something about him that seemed too familiar, but Bruce couldn’t quite place him.

The man smiled at the host before the young man turned and left their table, and that was when recognition struck Bruce.

It was Harvey. Harvey, the man who Bruce had spent a few days talking to on a dating app.

Bruce examined Harvey and his companion again, noting the wedding ring Harvey was wearing on his left hand. There was a large diamond ring on the woman’s left hand as well.

“Bruce,” Hal said.

With effort, Bruce looked away from Harvey and at Hal instead.

“Yes?” Bruce said.

Hal looked over his shoulder at the table where Harvey and his wife were sitting.

“You know them?” Hal asked.

Bruce couldn’t help but glance at Harvey one more time. He was smiling at something his wife was saying, his countenance warm with adoration. He certainly didn’t look like a man who would cheat, but he hadn’t mentioned anything about being married, either. In fact, Bruce could remember numerous things Harvey had said indicating he’d been single for quite a while.

“No,” Bruce said, looking back to Hal.

Hal raised a disbelieving eyebrow.

Lowering his voice, Bruce said, “The man was someone who I was talking to for a while. On a dating app.”

“Oh,” Hal said, understanding. He glanced over his shoulder at Harvey and his wife again before turning back to say, “Those are some nice wedding rings. Did he mention he was married?”

“No.”

Hal made a _tsk_ sound with his tongue and said, “Typical.”

Bruce didn’t say anything to this.

Hal looked at him, then looked down at their mostly eaten dinners and their empty wine glasses.

“You want to get out of here?” he asked.

Bruce frowned at him and said, “You want to leave already?”

“Leave this restaurant, yes,” Hal said. “Go back to the neighborhood, no.”

“Do you have somewhere in mind?”

Hal smiled at him. He looked over his shoulder and said, “Where’s our waiter?”

* * *

Bruce and Hal snuck out of Falconi’s through a back exit about fifteen minutes later. They got into Bruce’s car and Hal gave Bruce directions to someplace across town.

They quickly left behind the more affluent neighborhood for a rougher district overwhelmed by liquor stores, warehouses, and pawnshops. But Hal refused to tell Bruce where they were going.

“Are you really going to leave me in suspense?” Bruce asked him.

“Relax, Bruce. I’m not taking you to a sex dungeon or something.”

Bruce saw Hal turn toward him in his peripheral vision, and Bruce glanced over to catch Hal examining Bruce’s outfit.

“I mean, maybe that’s what you were hoping for but that’s not where we’re going,” Hal added.

Bruce frowned and said, “I’m sorry?”

“The whole black turtleneck thing really speaks of the kind of dark desires somebody as repressed as you can only get out in a sex dungeon.”

Bruce looked away from the street again to shoot Hal a humorless look.

“I’m not kink shaming.” He pointed out the window and said, “Watch the road. You’ll turn right up ahead at the light.”

Less than a minute later, Bruce turned into a parking lot and saw…a bar.

It didn’t look like a particularly nice bar. It was in a dingy strip center between an adult entertainment establishment and a restaurant supply store. The word WARRIORS was spelled out over the entrance with glowing white letters. One of the Rs was out.

Bruce pulled into a parking space and turned off the car. Then he turned to look at Hal, but he didn’t say anything.

Hal snorted. He opened the car door and said, “Snob,” as he got out.

Reluctantly, Bruce got out too and followed Hal inside.

The interior of the bar was more or less what Bruce had been expecting. A battered assortment of mismatched chairs and tables were scattered across a concrete floor. The bar ran along the left side of the building, there were dingy booths lining the right side. Glowing advertisements for various alcoholic beverage companies decorated the walls, but there were a few photographs as well. A TV over the bar was tuned to a hockey game. The Coast City Guardians were up against the Metropolis Farmers. The place smelled faintly of cigarette smoke despite the large red and white NO SMOKING sign over the bar.

What Bruce hadn’t been expecting was the man behind the counter.

“Jesus Christ,” Guy Gardner said when he looked over and spotted Hal. His eyes lingered on Bruce too, but although his expression was disapproving, he didn’t otherwise acknowledge Bruce’s presence.

“Hey Guy,” Hal said. “How’s business tonight?”

“Business is shit, Hal, as you can see,” Guy said.

He held out a hand, showing off the night’s patrons. There were a couple of youngish men playing pool at the back of the bar, and there was a grey-haired man sitting on a stool at the end of the counter who looked so drunk that he might slide out of his seat. There was also a solitary man sitting in one of the booths, and Bruce realized with a start that this was John Stewart. The table in front of him was almost entirely covered by books and a laptop, and he was busy working that he didn’t seem to have noticed Hal and Bruce yet.

Hal pointed at Bruce and asked Guy, “You remember Bruce, right?”

“How could I forget?” Guy said dryly, eyeing Bruce with familiar disdain.

Bruce did not respond to this, but Guy didn’t seem to care. He turned back to Hal and said, “You’d better be drinking tonight, Jordan. I’m not letting you sit around scaring off paying customers with your ugly face.”

“I’ll have a beer,” Hal said, and turned to Bruce to ask, “Bruce? Do you want something?”

Bruce looked to Guy and said, “A beer for me as well.”

Guy’s only response to this was another frown and a raised eyebrow. He turned to go fetch their drinks and Hal said, “Let’s find somewhere to sit.”

Bruce looked around the mostly empty bar at all of the empty booths and tables, but as he was looking he noticed one table in particular. Next to a pillar there was a table upon which had been painted the black and white design of a chess board.

Hal saw where he was looking and asked, “You play chess?”

Bruce tore his gaze away from the table and looked over at Hal.

“I play with Alfred sometimes. I’ve tried to teach the kids but none of them are particularly interested in it. They humor me, I think,” Bruce said.

Hal gave him an evaluating look, then went over to the bar and reached over the counter to feel around behind it for something.

“Hal, I’ve told you a million times to keep your filthy paws out from behind the bar,” Guy snapped.

But Hal ignored Guy and continued rummaging. Eventually, he found what he was looking for and pulled his arm back, now holding a Ziploc bag full of black and white plastic chess pieces in his hand.

“Let’s play a game,” Hal said, and started to head over to the table with the chess set painted on it.

They passed by John’s booth as they went. John looked up from his laptop as they went by. He did a double take when he recognized Hal and Bruce.

“Hey John,” Hal said.

“Hi Hal,” John said. Then, looking over to Bruce he said, “Bruce.”

Bruce nodded at him, but Hal didn’t linger to talk and Bruce kept following him.

They sat down at the table and Hal upended the bag full of chess pieces. With the confident air of someone who’d played many games of chess, he began to set out the pieces in their correct starting places, giving Bruce the black pieces and himself the white ones.

“One of the black rooks went missing so you’ll have to use this green alien thing instead,” Hal said, showing Bruce a small plastic figure of a green extraterrestrial with a huge head. He put the green alien in one of the corner places on Bruce’s end of the board.

“I thought that Guy was studying to be a teacher. Special education.”

“Warriors is a backup plan. Well, teaching is kind of also a backup plan. He’s still waiting for the bar’s popularity to take off,” Hal explained.

Since Guy was Hal’s friend, Bruce refrained from making a comment.

Eventually, Guy showed up at their table with a glass of beer in each hand. He set the glasses down on the table and immediately walked away, not bothering to explain what brand or kind of beer he’d served them. From the darkness of the liquid, Bruce’s guess was stout.

“Ready?” Hal said.

Bruce knew he was talking about the game and said, “When you are.”

Hal, it turned out, was good at chess. He was almost as good as Alfred, and Alfred was the only person Bruce had ever played who could outmaneuver him more often than not.

However, Hal underestimated Bruce and Bruce worked out his strategy early. By the time the first game was over and Bruce had won, both of their beers had been drunk and the hockey game was in its final period.

“Your team is about to lose to the Farmers,” Bruce said. “Just like you lost.”

“The Guardians? They bounce back,” Hal said. He nodded at the board and said, “Want to go again?”

Bruce nodded.

The bar filled out a little as they played, but Bruce ignored most of what was going on around them. They chatted about a variety of topics as their games went on—the kids, Hal’s job, Bruce’s house—and occasionally stopped to watch and comment on the hockey game. Warriors wasn’t the kind of place Bruce would’ve gone on his own, but after a while Bruce thought he could understand why Hal had taken him there.

Sometime in the midst of their second game, Guy wandered back over to the table and said, “Hal, I swear to god if you don’t buy another drink I will kick you out.”

“Do you see what’s going on?” Hal asked, gesturing at the chess board and the game in process. “I’m trying to kick Bruce’s ass. I can’t drink alcohol right now.”

“Just order something!”

“Fine. I’ll take a glass of water. Or could you make me some coffee?”

Guy sighed, but looked over at Bruce next.

“Coffee sounds great if you have it,” Bruce said.

Guy turned and walked away from the table without giving them any promises to bring them what they’d ordered. However, a few minutes later Bruce could smell the tale-tell smell of coffee brewing somewhere within the bar. Not long after that, Guy brought them a couple of mugs, an assortment of packaged creamers and sugar packets, and a carafe of drinkable coffee. He muttered something about Warriors not being a fucking Starbucks as he set the coffee down.

“Thanks Guy,” Hal said.

“You’re a pain in the ass, Jordan,” he said.

Hal made obnoxious kissing noises at Guy as he walked away to help another customer. Guy turned to flip him off but did not stop walking.

“He seems volatile,” Bruce said.

“He loves me,” Hal said, and poured cups of coffee for himself and Bruce.

* * *

It was sometime after midnight when Hal and Bruce finally made their way back to Bruce’s car.

They’d started four games in total. Bruce had won two and Hal had won one, but Guy had kicked Hal—and in essence Bruce—out before they were able to determine the winner of the fourth game.

“I was going to win,” Hal said.

“Doubtful,” Bruce said.

Bruce unlocked the car and the two of them climbed inside, slamming the doors behind them.

It wasn’t a surprise at all when Hal immediately reached over and grabbed Bruce’s sweater, for indeed Bruce had the same impulse and was already reaching for Hal as well. Then Hal was kissing him, and Bruce forgot about how late it was, and that his family was waiting for him, and that he and Hal were in his car outside a dumpy bar. He forgot everything in those the few, brief moments.

When they finally separated, Hal didn’t pull away entirely. Instead, he pressed his face into the crook of Bruce’s neck.

“Chess really gets you going, huh?” Hal asked. His voice muffled, and Bruce could feel the puffs of air as he breathed on Bruce’s neck.

“You’re one to talk,” Bruce said.

Hal didn’t give a proper reply, but instead groaned.

“What?” Bruce said.

With his face still pressed into Bruce’s skin, Hal said, “I want to ask you something but I know you’re going to say no.”

“What’s the question?” Bruce asked.

“I want you to come over tonight,” Hal said.

Bruce didn’t say anything right away, although of course Hal already knew what his answer would be.

“Kyle is at your house. My family is expecting me to come home any minute now,” Bruce said.

There was a huff of a sigh against Bruce’s neck.

“I know,” Hal said.

Hal pulled away from him at last and retrieved his phone from his back pocket. Bruce watched as Hal turned on the screen, but couldn’t help but say something when he saw Hal open his Uber app.

“You don’t need to get a ride. I can drive you home,” Bruce said.

“But—”

“It’s late. No one will see us.”

Hal frowned and lowered the hand holding his phone. There was a pause, and Bruce felt that Hal wanted to say something that he was holding back.

Bruce was about to ask him if there was something on his mind, but before he got a chance, Hal was shutting off his phone screen and putting the device back in his pocket.

“You’re right,” Hal said. “No one will see us.”

Satisfied, Bruce put the key into the ignition and started the car.

As he pulled out of the Warriors parking lot, the heat of the moment before was swiftly replaced with unease. He and Hal couldn’t keep this secret forever, surely. Hal was smart enough to figure that out for himself.

And if that was the case, then what the hell were he and Hal doing?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man is Bruce dense or what


	18. Chapter 18

On Monday the following week, Bruce got a text from Clark asking if he could join Bruce for a run the following morning. Bruce was curious about this deviation from their usual routine, but had no objections.

And so they met at the end of Bruce’s driveway before sunrise on Tuesday morning, both of them bundled up against the winter chill. They exchanged pleasantries and got on with their exercise.

If Bruce had been paying more attention—although, in truth, he had little attention to spare for anything but Hal—he perhaps would’ve noticed that Clark was oddly quiet that morning. Rarely ever was Clark reticent, and a lively conversationalist was not a role he had ever needed Bruce to fill. But Bruce was distracted, so he didn’t notice that Clark was being uncharacteristically quiet, or that the confrontation was coming until it was before him.

“Is something going on between you and Hal?” Clark asked.

Bruce flinched, but when he glanced over at Clark he saw that Clark wasn’t focused on him. Clark was looking ahead at the street they were running on, his expression serious.

It took a moment to piece together a response.

“What makes you think such a thing?” Bruce asked him.

Clark did not answer right away.

“The way you were acting at the Thanksgiving party,” Clark said finally. “You told me you were giving up on dating, but if you were I’d expect you to be in a worse mood. But you’re not in a bad mood at all. Everyone’s been saying so.”

This was hardly indisputable proof, and Bruce was about to point it out, but Clark went on before he could say anything.

“Also there was all that crazy stuff you were saying about getting rid of the HOA. I didn’t know what to make of it at first, but it’s no secret that Hal is having money problems, and if you care about Hal…”

Bruce opened his mouth to respond, but again Clark went on before Bruce could say anything.

“And the other night Barda told me she spotted you driving with somebody in your car. A man. She didn’t get a good look at whoever it was but she was curious, so she asked me if you were seeing anyone. I said I didn’t think so, but I asked Conner if Tim had told him anything. Conner also said no, but there is something different about you lately, I know it.”

Bruce’s brain scrambled around for some kind of excuse. He didn’t want to lie to Clark, the man who he considered to be something resembling a best friend. But the situation with Hal was delicate. Bruce lived in a state of constant apprehension that he might do something to ruin it.

As the silence stretched on, however, it dawned on Bruce that it was already far too late for a lie. If he’d really wanted to keep it a secret, the first thing out of his mouth should have been denial. If he started denying it now Clark would know he was lying and be hurt by it.

So Bruce said nothing, letting the silence speak for him.

“Oh my god,” Clark said faintly. “It is true.”

Bruce cast a glance around the neighborhood, checking to make sure no one was lingering about the neighborhood. He didn’t see anyone.

“You can’t tell anyone. Especially not Barry,” Bruce said.

“How? When?” Clark asked, his tone still mystified. “I mean…I don’t understand. You hated him so much.”

Bruce huffed out a sigh, but he didn’t really see a way around it, so he told Clark everything. Well, almost everything. He perhaps made it sound like there had been a lot more talking involved, and way fewer secret trysts. He also admitted that the dating apps had been an attempt to move on from Hal.

“…and to be honest, I have to be glad that the whole forgetting it happened thing didn’t work. I did not like any of those people I met on online,” Bruce said.

“So you’re what? Dating? Hooking up?” Clark asked.

Mortified, Bruce scanned the neighborhood again to check that they were still alone. They were.

“It’s not a fling. We’re together. We just don’t want everyone in our business.”

At least, that was what Bruce _thought_ was happening.

“My god, Bruce. Do you have any idea what kind of a scandal this is going to cause when it gets out?” Clark asked.

Bruce did know, and he was dreading it.

“That’s why you can’t tell anyone. I’m serious. Have you spoken about any of this with Lois?” Bruce asked.

Clark snorted and said, “No. Lois is too busy right now to care about the neighborhood gossip.”

Bruce felt some of the tension he hadn’t known he was carrying leave him.

“You really don’t think that between your kids, Alfred, Kyle, and then the rest of the neighborhood, people aren’t going to figure it out eventually? Who cares if you’re the subject of gossip for a little while? People will get bored after a couple of weeks and move on to something else,” Clark said.

Bruce opened his mouth to respond, but no words came out. It dawned on him that he didn’t know what to say because…well, even he wasn’t quite sure why he and Hal were still keeping it a secret.

He needed to talk about this with Hal. Actually talk about it. It was time. It was _past_ time.

“It’s between Hal and I,” Bruce finally told Clark. “And I don’t really want to talk about this anymore.”

“Ok. I just have one more question,” Clark said.

Bruce sighed, knowing there was nothing he could say to deter Clark from asking it.

“What?”

“Are you happy?” Clark asked.

Bruce was surprised by the question, and again didn’t have an answer right away.

But the answer was obvious, of course. The answer was yes. He didn’t like the secrecy, of course, but there was something about seeing Hal that made all of Bruce’s concerns slip away. Hal made fun of him in teasing, flirtatious ways, and Bruce couldn’t help but smile. He kissed Bruce like it was exhilarating, like there was nothing else he’d rather be doing. He was opinionated and had lots of annoying friends, but Bruce knew he’d do anything to help Kyle. Yes, he was kind of a mess, but so was Bruce.

At last, Bruce admitted, “I am.”

Clark made a thoughtful sound and said, “I’m glad.”

They finished their run, and, true to his word, Clark did not ask about Hal again.

* * *

Bruce couldn’t get the conversation about Hal off his mind for the rest of the morning. Clark figuring it out only proved to Bruce that the secrets and sneaking around would only last a short while longer. And, if he was being honest with himself, Bruce was tired of sneaking around. He wanted to be able to talk to Hal openly outside without being paranoid that someone would see them together and wonder about it. He wanted to be able to kiss Hal in the morning before Hal went to work even if the kids were there. He needed more of Hal, period. He felt like a plant slowly wilting from lack of sunlight. If Hal had something different in mind, then, well—it was better to get it out in the open sooner rather than later, so Bruce could move on.

So he was determined to call Hal that evening after his kids were in bed and initiate this very conversation. Unfortunately, something happened with the boys at the high school that day and it derailed Bruce’s plans.

It was 12:48 p.m. when Bruce felt his phone buzzing and pulled it out of his pocket to see an ominously familiar number on the screen. Bruce pressed the green button and put it to his ear.

“This is Bruce Wayne,” he said.

“Hi Mr. Wayne, this is Dr. Quinn from Kane High,” Dr. Quinn said. “I’m calling about your son.”

Bruce felt dread coil in his stomach.

“Jason?” Bruce said. “Has something happened?”

“Not Jason, Mr. Wayne. I’m calling about your older son, Dick,” she said.

Bruce frowned, so surprised that he wondered if he’d heard her right.

“Dick? What about him?” he asked.

“There was an incident today during lunch period. A fight. I’m afraid I’m going to need you to come up to the school to collect him. He’s been suspended for the rest of the day,” she said.

“ _Dick_?” Bruce said.

“Yes,” Dr. Quinn said, her tone pointedly patient.

“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” he said.

“Principal Doe is expecting you,” she said, and hung up.

“Great,” Bruce muttered, even though she was already gone.

Bruce told Alfred where he was going and why as he put on his boots. Then he left at once, still not really believing that this was happening.

It only took him a few minutes to get to the high school. After getting past security, Bruce tread the familiar path to the principal’s office and went inside. He scanned the office, searching for Dick.

Dick was indeed there, sitting in one of the chairs across from the administrative assistant’s desk. He was holding some bloody gauze up against his nose, and Bruce could already see a bruise purpling around his left eye.

Dick was not the only teenage boy waiting in the administration office, however. Next to Dick was Roy looking equally scraped up, and next to him was Kyle, who had a busted lip. There was an empty chair between Kyle and two other individuals. One was considerably shorter than the other boys, and had a haughty, round face that reminded Bruce of a pug. The other boy was a bit taller and skinnier, and had bleached blond hair. He glared at Bruce as Bruce examined them.

Bruce tried to make sense of what he was seeing, but couldn’t. Kyle was there, but Jason wasn’t. And why were Dick and Roy?

“Hi, Mr. Wayne,” said the administrative assistant. “Principal Doe is waiting in his office for you.”

Bruce ignored her and turned back to Dick.

“Are you alright?” he asked him.

Dick’s voice was a little muffled under the gauze when he said, “Super.”

Bruce looked to Roy and Kyle next, and asked them, “You too, boys? Are Hal and Oliver on their way?”

Both boys nodded.

Bruce eyed them all for a moment more, then turned and went over to Principal Doe’s office. He didn’t bother to knock before he opened the door and stepped in.

Principal Doe turned away from his computer screen as Bruce entered and closed the door behind him. He smiled as he made eye contact with Bruce, but the expression lacked its usual glee, and Bruce had the sudden intuition that Principal Doe was annoyed about something.

“Hello, Mr. Wayne,” he said. He gestured at one of the chairs across from his desk and added, “Take a seat.”

Bruce didn’t. Instead, he crossed his arms over his chest.

“I would like to know what’s going on and why my son is sitting out there with a bloody nose,” Bruce said.

“He has a bloody nose because he was fighting, Mr. Wayne,” Principal Doe said. “With young Misters Sionis and Zsasz.”

“Why are Kyle and Roy out there too?” Bruce asked.

“Unfortunately, it is difficult to piece together all of the different parts of the puzzle. However, what seems to have happened is that your son Dick, Mr. Harper, and Mr. Rayner were defending your other son, Jason, and another student from Mr. Sionis and Mr. Zsasz,” Principal Doe said.

Bruce’s pulse quickened.

“Jason was involved? Where is he?” Bruce asked.

“He’s still in the nurse’s office with Mr. Hawke. They’re fine, I assure you. Only a few little scrapes and bruises. This time, it seems, Jason was not involved in the fighting, since he did not choose to engage when Mr. Sionis and Mr. Zsasz initiated the fight. However, as your older son did rush to his defense and fight on school premises, I unfortunately will have to suspend him for the rest of the day. Your remember what I told you about our zero tolerance policy regarding fighting.”

Bruce absorbed this for a moment, trying to make sure he understood. He wasn’t quite sure he got it all, but he didn’t trust Principal Doe to give him a straight answer. He decided he’d be better off asking Dick about it in the car on the way home.

“I understand,” Bruce said.

“Such an interesting household you have, Mr. Wayne. So many spirited children,” Principal Doe said.

Bruce thought he understood then why Principal Doe was so annoyed. The opportunity to expel Jason had slipped through his fingers, because Jason had chosen not to fight back.

The full weight of what this meant this sank in and Bruce was almost dizzy with relief. 

“Do you have anything else to tell me?” Bruce asked Principal Doe.

“Not at this time.”

“Good,” Bruce said.

He turned and left, not bothering with a farewell.

* * *

Bruce waited until they got back to the house to start asking questions, figuring that Alfred would want to hear what had happened also. They sat around the kitchen table drinking tea as Dick explained what had gone down.

Dick’s side of the story was relatively straightforward.

He’d been walking to class with Roy after lunch when a sophomore Dick didn’t know ran over to them that Roman and Victor—the two other boys Bruce had seen in the administration office—had jumped Jason, Connor, and Kyle in the math wing. Jason wasn’t fighting back for some reason, and Connor, being a pacifist, refused to fight. Dick and Roy ran to go break it up, but when they arrived, Dick saw how beat up Jason was and got mad. Before he knew it he was fighting Victor, and then some teachers descended, and the rest Bruce knew.

Bruce listened to this story without commenting, and when Dick was done talking, he grounded Dick for two weeks. Dick’s only response to this was a nod. Bruce knew he wasn’t happy about it, but did not appear to be surprised either, and soon excused himself to go up to his bedroom. If Alfred thought this was a harsh punishment he didn’t say so out loud.

Predictably, the rest of the day passed with chaotic fervor. The younger kids had already heard the news by the time Bruce and Alfred picked them up from school, and it was all they wanted to talk about. Then Bruce had to go get Jason from the high school, and since he was standing in the usual spot all by himself, it was easy to guess that Kyle had also been suspended for the rest of the day just as Dick had. He did indeed looked a little bruised and battered, but not terribly hurt. Bruce tried asking questions about what happened, but Jason sat in sullen silence in the passenger seat all the way home, refusing even to look at Bruce. When they got back to the house, he got out of the car and went up to his bedroom, where he stayed with the door shut for the rest of the afternoon.

Dick was done moping by the time dinner rolled around, but Jason wasn’t. Bruce tried knocking on his door, but Jason didn’t answer. When Bruce tried the doorknob he found that it was locked. Bruce let him be.

After the rest of the family was done eating, however, Bruce took a plate up to Jason’s bedroom and knocked on the door again.

“Jason, can I come in please? I brought you dinner,” Bruce said. 

There was no response. In fact, it was so quiet in the room that Bruce wondered if Jason had snuck out his window.

Just as he was lifting his free hand to knock again, however, there was a creaking noise that sounded like Jason’s old bedframe. Then there were footsteps, and Jason unlocked and opened the door.

Bruce and Jason stared at each other.

Bruce held out the plate, but Jason didn’t accept it. Instead he turned, and went back over to his bed. He threw himself onto his mattress, then picked up the book that had been left pages down to save his place. It was his mother’s old yellowing copy of _Pride and Prejudice,_ the cover torn off at one corner. Bruce took this as a sign that Jason wasn’t just mad. He was furious.

Bruce entered the room, and shut the door behind him. He set the plate down on the empty space next to the neat pile of textbooks on Jason’s desk.

“Are Kyle and Connor ok?” Bruce asked him.

Jason did not answer right away.

“They’re fine.”

“That’s good,” Bruce said.

Jason didn’t look away from the page he was reading, but Bruce noticed that his eyes weren’t moving along the page.

“And you? Do you feel ok?” Bruce asked.

Jason took a breath.

Bruce didn’t say anything as Jason put the book down on the mattress again. He sat up, and then stood up, and then he was yelling at Bruce.

He was yelling so loud and so fast that Bruce didn’t catch most of what Jason said. There was a lot about Kyle and Connor, and some rude things about Roman Sionis that Bruce would’ve ordinarily not let slide, but Bruce decided to let it go this time. Jason also had a lot to say about Principal Doe, and Bruce as well.

Bruce let him air it all. It was clear to him that Jason had been stewing all day, and yelling back or even interrupting would’ve just made it worse.

The rant eventually began to lose direction, and then steam, and at long last, Jason stopped yelling. He paced a little bit, and kicked one of his pillows that had fallen on the carpet, but eventually stopped and sat back down on the edge of the mattress.

He glared up at Bruce, his body still rigid.

“What happened with Roman and Victor?” Bruce asked him.

Jason seemed confused by the question. He said, “When?”

“Today, before the fight. I want to know your side of the story,” Bruce said.

Jason had to think about it for the moment. He was still breathing hard, but Bruce could see that he was calming down, which was good.

“We were heading back to class after lunch, minding our own business. I didn’t even realize they were around, but then suddenly Roman got in our way. He started talking about my mom. I don’t know how he even found out about her, but he was saying all this shit about how she was a junkie and probably a hooker too and that’s the reason why I ended up a foster kid. He was announcing it to everybody and his stupid friend was laughing.”

Bruce felt a pang of anger, sharp and hot.

“I wanted to fight him, but I knew if I did I’d get expelled. Kyle could tell how mad I was and tried to get in the way. We were still going to walk away, but I couldn’t help it. I said something about how Roman’s mom must’ve cried when she saw him for the first time because he’s so hideous. It wasn’t even a good comeback and I didn’t expect it to set him off like it did, but the next thing I knew he was throwing himself at us. Victor did too, because he’s a dumb piece of—”

Jason stopped short and did not say the cuss word Bruce was sure he’d almost said. 

“Were they punished for initiating the fight?” Bruce asked.

“Victor got suspended until Friday,” Jason said. “Roman’s suspended until next week.”

Bruce nodded.

“Kyle is suspended until Friday too,” Jason said, some of the heat from earlier returning to his voice. “Hal grounded him for two weeks on top of that.”

Bruce was surprised to hear it, but thought he understood a great deal more of Jason’s anger now.

“What about Connor? He didn’t get suspended, so he shouldn’t be grounded,” Bruce pointed out.

“Yeah, I know, he didn’t, but—” Jason cut himself off, not finishing the rest of the sentence.

But Bruce knew what he meant. Connor wasn’t grounded, but Connor wasn’t the one who was Jason’s boyfriend.

Bruce was about to get up, remind Jason to eat his food, and go, but Jason huffed out another sigh and fidgeted at the edge of the bed. Bruce lingered for a moment more.

“Look,” Jason said.

His hands, which had been curled into fists before, were now loose. The fingers of his left hand twitched. Suddenly he wasn’t looking Bruce in the eye.

“Kyle isn’t just my friend. I didn’t want to say anything because it’s not a big deal, but—”

Again, Jason cut himself off. Bruce waited for him to go on.

“He’s kind of like, my boyfriend or something,” Jason said. “Kyle is. That’s why I was so annoyed before about being grounded. And I was trying not to get grounded again because I knew you wouldn’t let me see him and you’d take my phone away.”

“I’m very happy for you, Jason,” Bruce said. “Kyle is a nice kid.”

“But now he’s grounded!” Jason said. The words burst out of him, furious.

“I know, but that’s up to Hal, not me. You’ll survive, don’t worry. Two weeks will go by faster than you think,” Bruce said.

Jason let out a long, annoyed sigh.

Bruce walked over to the bed and said, “Stand up.”

Jason frowned up at him and said, “Why?” But he did what Bruce asked and got up.

Bruce hugged him. Jason stood, tense and not reciprocating, in Bruce’s arms. For the briefest moments, his hands came up and he gave Bruce the lightest, almost nonexistent hug back. Then he let go, and was stiff and unyielding again.

Bruce let him go and stepped back.

“I love you Jason,” Bruce said.

Jason didn’t say it back.

_Teenagers_ , Bruce thought.

“Eat your dinner,” Bruce said, nodding at the plate on the desk.

“I’m not hungry.”

“Then don’t eat it, but you better not come crying to me later saying you’re starving,” Bruce said.

Jason muttered something under his breath Bruce didn’t catch, but Bruce smiled as he turned and left Jason’s room, shutting the door behind him on his way out.

* * *

Bruce was exhausted by the time he was getting ready for bed that night. As he was brushing his teeth, he remembered his earlier plans to call Hal and talk about the status of their relationship. Now he was positive that he didn’t have the energy, physical or emotional, for that conversation.

When he was done, he left the bathroom and went over to check his phone. He saw that he had a text from Hal.

Hal: Fyi, I can’t talk tonight. I assume I don’t have to tell you about what’s going on with Kyle

Bruce tapped out a response.

Bruce: I’m exhausted as well. I’ll talk to you sometime later this week.

For once, Bruce was too tired to wait around and make sure Hal got his message. He set his phone back down and climbed into bed. He was asleep within minutes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not a lot of Hal in this chapter but there's only a couple of chapters left in this story and you can bet he will be the focus of them!


	19. Chapter 19

It didn’t take long for Bruce to remember why he went out of his way to avoid grounding Dick. Gymnastics practice wasn’t enough to slow him down; he needed social interaction as well as physical exercise. And since he couldn’t get any social interaction with his friends, he bothered the family instead.

“Dick, could you stop doing that please?” Bruce asked without looking up from his phone.

He was relaxing in his favorite chair in the den that evening while Tim was sitting on the floor in front of the TV playing video games. Dick was with them as well, and—since he was bored out of his mind—he kept doing handstands and flips and was just in general being a distracting, talkative nuisance.

“I’m bored,” he told Bruce.

Bruce still didn’t look up from his phone as he said, “Next time, don’t fight kids who are two years younger and a foot shorter than you.”

“The blond guy wasn’t that short,” Dick said.

Bruce looked up from his phone at last, but Dick wasn’t focusing on him. He was doing a handstand, but as Bruce watched, he slowly lifted one hand, balancing all of his weight on the single hand still pressed into the carpet. The black eye on his face was a stark reminder of why Bruce and the other kids were currently suffering through Dick’s seemingly endless reserves of energy.

“I agree with Jason. I was defending him. The fact that I got suspended at all is unfair,” Dick said.

Bruce did not bother reminding Dick that the reason Jason kept saying this was because of Kyle. Jason appreciated the fact that Dick had come to his defense, but Bruce was positive Jason would be too preoccupied to care that Dick was grounded if Kyle wasn’t.

“You were suspended, so you’re grounded. This punishment is supposed to remind you that your principal is a sociopath and will be happy to expel you if you fight on the high school premises again.”

“Yeah but I get two more strikes,” Dick said. Bruce watched as he put the hand in the air back down on the carpet and transferred his weight to it. He then raised the other hand into the air, continuing this odd balancing act.

“Having one strike is already too many,” Bruce said.

“So next time you just want me to stand around and watch Jason get hit?” Dick asked.

“ _If_ Jason gets hit by a classmate again, pull that individual away from Jason and subdue them instead of fighting.”

Bruce meant to go on about this subject, but his phone buzzed in his hand.

He looked down and saw that he had a message from Hal. He checked to see what it said immediately.

Hal: What are you doing right now?

Bruce quickly tapped out a response.

Bruce: Listening to Dick complain about being grounded.

“It’s not like I’m actually going to get expelled,” Dick said. “I only have the one strike and I’m graduating this year. What’s the big deal?”

“Believe me, I wish you were off bothering Kory or Wally instead of me too,” Bruce said.

His phone buzzed with another message from Hal.

Hal: You too? I just got done having that convo with Kyle. Again

There was a thump, and Bruce looked up from his phone to see that Dick was finally standing on his feet. He put his hands on his hips and stood in the middle of the den for a moment, but then walked over and sank down onto the floor next to Tim.

“No video games either,” Bruce said.

“I’m just spending some time with Tim,” Dick said as he threw his arm around Tim’s shoulders.

Tim turned around and shot Bruce a beseeching look.

“Dick, is your homework done?” Bruce asked.

“Sure,” Dick said.

“That response really inspires confidence. Go upstairs and double-check everything. Especially any math homework.”

Dick sighed, but stood back up and walked out of the den. Bruce listened to his footsteps pound up the stairs, and on the floor in front of the TV, Tim shook his head and kept playing.

“You too, Tim. Is your homework done?” he asked.

“Yes,” Tim said.

“Maybe you should—”

Tim held up a hand, but did not look away from the TV. He said, “I got Alfred to look at it. You can check with him.”

Bruce sighed, but let Tim be.

His phone buzzed again with another message.

Hal: Still talking to Dick?

Frowning, Bruce typed a response.

Bruce: No, why?

Hal was typing again as soon as Bruce hit send.

Hal: Could you make up an excuse to come outside? Backyard

Bruce eyed the back of Tim’s head. Except for him, all of the kids were in their rooms doing homework or getting ready for bed.

Bruce: Give me a minute.

Bruce got up from the chair and switched off the lamp on the side table before he left the den. He went out of the room without saying anything to Tim, since Tim was once again absorbed in the video game and would no doubt only be more curious if Bruce interrupted him to announce he was departing.

Bruce went through the hall and into the kitchen, finding that the room was empty. He slid on some work boots that he’d abandoned by the back door earlier in the day before he opened the door and stepped out into the backyard.

It was chilly outside, and Bruce regretted his lack of coat, but was too single-minded to consider returning in the house to fetch one. Instead he scanned the pitch black expanse of his and Hal’s two yards as he pulled the door shut behind him.

Hal was standing on his own back porch. The porch light wasn’t on, but there were lights on inside his house, and even with the blinds shut it was still enough illumination that Bruce could see him. He was leaning up against the brick façade, wearing the jacket that was as familiar to Bruce now as the man’s face.

The breath felt oddly knocked out of him as he examined Hal, especially so when Hal smiled and stood up straight.

Bruce walked over to him.

“Hey,” Hal said when Bruce reached him. 

“Hi,” Bruce said.

He hadn’t seen Hal in person since their date on Saturday night. It took all of Bruce’s willpower to not lean over and kiss him.

“How’d you ditch Dick?” Hal asked.

“I made him go work on his homework. How’d you ditch Kyle?”

“Ditch him? I didn’t have to ditch him. After arguing with me all through dinner, he got up and stomped upstairs to be an emo baby in his room. He’s been holed up in there ever since.”

Bruce grunted his acknowledgement, and Hal rolled his eyes as he tilted his head back, a low, frustrated sigh emerging from his lips as a puff of fog in the winter air.

“You didn’t warn me that teenagers can be such obnoxious little shits,” Hal said.

“It’s that bad?” Bruce asked.

“Oh my god, you wouldn’t believe it. He keeps bringing up the last time he got suspended and how I didn’t ground him then and ‘why’s it such a big deal now?’”

Hal paused, but Bruce didn’t say anything, since he sensed that Hal wasn’t done.

“You know that principal at the high school is a psychopath, right? I swear he was pleased about it all. He wouldn’t stop smiling at me while he was talking about it, like it was making his day to suspend Kyle from school. I tried to explain it to Kyle. That guy is definitely out to get him, you know? But Kyle just keeps whining about it.” Hal screwed his face up in a mocking way, and when he spoke again it was in a pitiful imitation of Kyle’s voice. “’What happened to all that stuff you said the last time about how me and Jason were standing up to bullies and we shouldn’t get punished for it? I was just defending Jason. Was I supposed to stand there and let it happen?’ So I told Kyle that last time was different, that now he’s looking at getting expelled if he fights again, so what does he expect me to do?”

Bruce couldn’t help but grin a little. Hal noticed and narrowed his eyes at Bruce.

“What’s so funny?” he asked.

“The last time something like this happened I had to listen to Jason complain about how you weren’t grounding Kyle. He wouldn’t shut up for weeks,” Bruce told him.

Hal’s eyes narrowed further.

“I guess, considering the circumstances, that I can consider us even now,” Bruce said.

Hal snorted.

“Well, I thought about calling his mom and asking her what I should do, but the whole point of this is to give them a break from each other. I’m doing a piss poor job of holding up my end of the bargain if I call her anytime there’s trouble,” Hal said, and ran his hand through his hair.

Bruce almost said something, but a serious expression crossed Hal’s face, wiping away any traces of mirth, and he kept silent. Hal ran his hand through his hair again.

“Remember at the restaurant, that thing you told me?” Hal asked him.

Bruce cocked his head, not sure what Hal was referring to.

“About what happened to your parents?” Hal asked.

“Oh,” Bruce said, caught off guard by the sudden change of topic. “Yes.”

Hal looked at the ground and didn’t say anything for a moment.

“Something kind of like that happened to me when I was a kid,” he said. “My dad was a test pilot too. Did I ever tell you that? I used to sneak off to watch him fly. One day I was going to watch, but Jack—my older brother—caught me and told my mom. She didn’t let me go.”

Hal paused, struggling with the words.

“There was some kind of malfunction. His jet crashed and he died. If I’d been there I would’ve watched it happen,” Hal said.

Bruce reached for him, placing a hand on Hal’s arm. He knew how worthless words could be in the face of grief, so he said nothing.

“I was a terror as a kid. I kind of was before that, but I was worse after he died. Sneaking out, getting in trouble, being reckless and getting hurt. I was a menace and I drove my mom up the wall. I don’t think I ever really got over it. My dad was my hero, and then he was gone and I didn’t know how to handle it. Sometimes I can’t help but wonder if Kyle coming to live with me is a huge mistake. What if Kyle’s no better off now than he was living with Maura?” Hal said.

Bruce put his other hand on Hal’s other arm. Surprised, Hal looked deep into Bruce’s eyes.

“You’re doing fine, I promise. And you know if I thought otherwise, I’d say so,” Bruce said.

Hal didn’t say anything. Instead he stepped closer and kissed Bruce.

Their lips made contact, and Bruce felt a spike of alarm. It was dark outside, but they were in no way concealed from view from either house. Kyle or one of Bruce’s kids could look out a window and see them quite clearly. Hell, one of Bruce’s kids could walk outside any moment and see them that way.

But it wasn’t long before these anxieties were swept away by the warmth of his embrace. Bruce forgot entirely about being seen as he kissed Hal back. He forgot altogether that there was anything to hide.

As the kiss went on, however, something began to nag at Bruce—a sort of unsettling discomfort that eventually snapped Bruce out of it. As he was puzzling about the source of said discomfort, Hal pulled away.

“Something wrong?” Hal asked Bruce.

Bruce frowned. He almost said no and leaned back in to kiss Hal again, but he couldn’t help but glance around.

That was when he saw Cassandra.

Cassandra was standing just beyond the open doorway into the kitchen. She wasn’t wearing a jacket, and had her arms crossed tightly over her chest to stave off the chill. She was staring at Hal and Bruce with wide eyes.

Bruce stepped away from Hal at once and said, “Cassandra!”

Cassandra flinched, her eyes growing even wider. Then, without saying anything, she turned and ran back into the house, slamming the door behind her.

Hal cursed under his breath.

“I have to go,” Bruce said.

“Bruce—” Hal said, and grabbed for the sleeve of Bruce’s shirt.

Bruce wrenched his sleeve out of Hal’s grasp and walked away. In that moment all he could think about was Cassandra, and he followed her back into the house without sparing Hal a glance back. 

The kitchen was empty when Bruce got inside, which wasn’t surprising. He could still hear the video games going in the den, but Bruce went past that room. He went farther down the hall to the door to the basement. It was closed, but Bruce stopped outside it and knocked.

“Cassandra, it’s me,” he said. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

There was no answer from within.

Bruce knocked again and said, “Cassandra, honey, I just want to talk to you.”

His heart was in his throat by the time he finally heard Cassandra say, “It’s not locked.”

Relieved, Bruce turned the doorknob and went down the stairs into Cassandra’s room. Reaching the end of the staircase, he saw that Cassandra was sitting on her bed. Her back was pressed into the wall and she had her arms wrapped around her knees. She didn’t look upset, which was good, but she did look embarrassed.

“I’m sorry,” she said, not meeting his eyes.

“You don’t have to apologize,” Bruce said. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Alfred sent me to look for you. He said that he didn’t know where you were and Damian was asking for you.”

“Yes, and that’s fine,” Bruce said.

She still wouldn’t look at him, however, and her head was bent so that her bangs covered most of her face.

Bruce pulled the chair out from under her desk and turned it around so that it faced her. He sat down.

“Look, what you saw,” Bruce said, but paused.

He took a moment to curse himself for the entire situation. If he’d talked to Hal like he planned to days ago, then no doubt he wouldn’t be in this mess. But everything had been so hectic with the boys, and Bruce hadn’t wanted to spoil the few nightly phone calls he’d gotten with Hal by dragging him into a discussion about their relationship.

“Hal and I have been seeing each other,” Bruce went on at last. “We didn’t tell anyone about it because it’s so new. But you are in no way obligated to keep it a secret from Alfred or Stephanie or the boys. You can tell them anything you want.”

Cassandra’s eyes traveled around the wall behind Bruce, but finally made it up to his face.

“When—?”

She stopped, and didn’t finish asking her question.

“When what? When did we start seeing each other?” he asked.

“When were you going to tell us?” she asked.

Bruce sighed.

“Soon. It was something that I was going to talk to Hal about earlier this week, but everything got crazy with Dick and Jason at school,” he said.

Cassandra nodded, but didn’t say anything else. He was sure she had more questions, but Cassandra wasn’t openly inquisitive the way that Dick was. Not that she wasn’t nosy, because she was; she just preferred to go to Tim for her information instead.

“I’ll be…telling the other kids soon,” Bruce said. He’d have to talk to Hal about it first, but now that Cassandra had seen them together it changed matters. “Ok?”

Cassandra nodded.

“I’m going to go check on Damian,” Bruce said, and got up.

Cassandra nodded again.

“I love you, Cassandra,” Bruce said.

“I love you too,” she said.

Bruce pushed her chair back in under her desk before he turned and headed back up the steps to the first floor.

At the top of the stairs, Bruce closed her door behind him and turned, taking a step just beyond her door in the hallway. He put a hand on the wall, and gazed into the dark front entryway, his vision gathering no details in the dark.

Cassandra knew. And he’d left Hal standing out there in the dark by himself. Their secret was officially out.

“Damn it,” Bruce said, quiet enough so no one could hear him.

He turned and headed up the stairs to check on his youngest son.

* * *

It was late by the time Bruce made it to his bedroom that night. Damian had wanted the same story to be read to him over and over again, and Tim hadn’t wanted to stop playing video games. Between the two of them, checking on the status of Dick’s homework, and making sure that Jason and Duke were in bed, it had been well over an hour since Bruce left Hal standing outside in the cold.

The first thing Bruce did after shutting and locking his bedroom door was check his phone.

He had no new messages.

Concerned, Bruce sat down on the edge of his bed. He closed the messenger app, deciding it would be more efficient to call Hal.

The phone rang…and rang…and rang…and at last went to voicemail.

His sense of foreboding tripling with every second, Bruce hung up without leaving a voicemail and immediately called Hal again.

The second call also went to voicemail.

At that point, Bruce stood and went over to the window that faced Hal’s bedroom. He opened the curtains and looked out across the expanse between their houses.

Hal’s blinds were shut.

“Really?” Bruce said out loud, annoyed.

There was a light on in Hal’s bedroom. He could see the bits of light streaming out from the corners of the window, on the edges where the blinds couldn’t quite cover everything.

It wasn’t long before his annoyance was replaced with the unease again. Was Hal mad because they’d been caught? Or was he upset with Bruce for taking off? If it was the former, then, well. Bruce was hardly at fault for that. Hal was the one who’d texted Bruce and asked him to come outside to the backyard. He was also the one who’d kissed Bruce right there where anyone could catch them.

But if it was the latter, then…

Bruce shut the curtains and went back over to his phone. This time he didn’t try to call. He opened the messenger app again and typed out a message.

Bruce: I’m sorry about earlier. I wanted to talk to Cassandra before she got any wrong ideas. Will you please call me? We need to discuss some things.

He spent some time worrying about that last sentence before he sent the text. He didn’t want Hal to think he was breaking up with him, but he couldn’t think of a better way to put it either. He hit send.

Bruce’s text popped up on the screen. He sat there for a few minutes staring at it, hoping that he would see the ellipses popping up to indicate that Hal was responding, for better or ill.

But all Bruce saw was that his message had been delivered.

He wasn’t sure how much longer it was before he finally got up and brushed his teeth. He checked his phone again before he got into bed, but was somehow unsurprised to see that Hal still hadn’t responded.

He tossed and turned in his bed quite a bit in the dark that night. He just couldn’t quite seem to get comfortable, and it was well after midnight by the time he finally fell into a restless slumber.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GOOD NEWS I finished Good Fences yesterday and will be posting the conclusion next Sunday!! Sorry for another cliffhanger but at least you won't have to wait long to find out what happens :)


	20. Chapter 20

When he reflected back on it, Bruce wasn’t quite sure what happened for most of the next morning. He could remember making breakfast for the kids, but he couldn’t recall if there had been any conversations at the table and if so, what had been discussed. When breakfast was done, Bruce shuffled his children off to get dressed and gather their things for school, and then he went and stood in the library at the window.

Around 7:35, Bruce watched as Hal exited his house and shut the door behind him. He was wearing his boots, flight jacket, and his coveralls from Ferris Air.

Hal did not venture beyond his front patio, but Bruce watched as he glanced around the neighborhood. It was cold out that morning, however, and none of the other neighbors were out and about. Hal relaxed and leaned up against his front stoop. He put his hands in the pockets of his coveralls and then he tipped his head back against the brick and closed his eyes.

Bruce turned and left the library. He was already wearing his jacket and boots, so he didn’t have to pause before going out the front door.

Bruce went down the front path and turned in Hal’s direction, walking across the expanse of their yards. Hal didn’t hear him coming until Bruce was but six or seven feet from him, and when Hal did hear him at last his head jerked up and his eyes opened. Surprise, concern, and something that looked a lot like anger flashed across his face when he saw it was Bruce approaching, but he schooled his face into a blank expression as Bruce neared.

Bruce stopped in front of him and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Hey Bruce,” Hal said. He didn’t take his hands out of his pockets.

“Hal,” Bruce said.

They stared at each other for a moment.

When the silence had stretched on too long, Bruce said, “You didn’t answer my messages last night. I tried to call you as well.”

Hal looked away from him and scanned the street, but Bruce couldn’t hear any cars coming. No one was on their way to rescue him from this conversation.

“Do you think we could talk later? Tom should be here any minute to pick me up,” Hal said without looking at Bruce.

“How are we supposed to talk if you refuse to answer any of my calls or texts?”

Hal's sigh came out as fog in the cold air.

“Cassandra saw us last night," Bruce told him. "I didn’t lie to her, because I don’t lie to my children. I also did not forbid her from telling the boys or Alfred. I’m sure you’ve noticed that my kids are friends with everyone in this neighborhood. If the news hasn’t already started spreading, then it will soon.”

Hal finally met Bruce’s gaze. He stood up straight and pulled his hands out of his pockets, mirroring Bruce’s posture when he crossed his arms over his chest. But when he spoke, all he said was, “Ok.”

“That’s all you have to say?”

“Look, can you just dump me and let me get on with my life?” Hal asked.

For a while, all Bruce could do was stand there and stare at Hal. He’d heard the question, of course. Hal had spoken quite clearly. The problem was that there was a part of Bruce’s brain that couldn’t comprehend it.

“Dump you?” Bruce repeated.

“Yes,” Hal said.

“Why—?”

Bruce was so stunned he couldn’t even finish the question.

“Is that not why you came out here?” Hal asked.

“No, I—of course I’m not. I thought—”

Hal cocked his head and took a step toward him.

“Is that what you want?” Bruce asked him.

“No,” Hal said.

Bruce was relieved, but the relief was still tinged with dread.

“Then why—?”

He didn’t finish the question, but Hal seemed to know what it was anyway.

“I know I’m a mess, Bruce. I have a worthless motorcycle that doesn’t work and I can’t pay for a fence. I have no clue what I’m doing with Kyle and everyone knows it. I’m not like you.”

Bruce gazed at him, aghast.

“You’re not—I don’t—” Bruce said, but again words failed him. 

“I’m not what?” Hal asked, taking another step toward him. “Not a mess? Then what’s with all of this sneaking around crap? I have to call you after dark. We pretend to be friendly if the neighbors can see us. You wouldn’t even tell your kids until we got caught. I mean, Jesus Christ, Bruce.”

“I didn’t tell anyone because I thought that was what you wanted,” Bruce said.

“Why would I want that?” Hal asked.

“Because of that night at the party. We went downstairs separately so that no one would realize what we’d been doing.”

“I did that because you looked like you were about to bolt. And then you did bolt anyway,” Hal said.

“I thought…” Bruce trailed off, trying to remember what it was that he had thought. “I worried that it was too much. Me. The kids. I know that I’m not always the easiest to deal with, and in the past I’ve had—well, bad luck with relationships. After the first time we kissed you vanished and wouldn’t approach me for days. I was concerned that you’d panic if anyone thought we were a couple.”

Hal looked at him as if he was the dumbest person alive.

“Bruce, I took you to Warriors. I did that while we were clearly on a date, knowing that Guy would be there and that John probably would be too. What part of that struck you as me panicking about people figuring out we were together?” Hal asked.

Bruce let this sink in…and then felt like he _was_ the dumbest person alive. All this time, he’d been thinking about it all from his own perspective—the kids and Alfred knowing, Hal telling Kyle, the neighbors finding out. But Hal hadn’t made any effort to keep their relationship a secret from his friends. Bruce was an idiot, and also maybe more than a little self-centered.

“What you said is not true,” Bruce said.

Hal’s face screwed up in confusion. “What?”

“I don’t think you’re a mess. I care about you a great deal and for quite a while now I have been wanting exactly what you want,” Bruce said. “I don’t care who knows we’re together. And I apologize that my behavior made you believe that I did.”

Hall narrowed his eyes at Bruce. A terrifying moment passed, during which Bruce had no idea what was going through his head.

Then Hal finally said, “Ok.”

Bruce held his breath.

“Yeah, that’s—I guess I could have brought it up sooner. I was so certain you didn’t want anyone to know about me and I was scared to ask and have you confirm it. You’re serious, though? You’re going to tell Alfred, Clark? All the kids? No more sneaking around? We can go on actual dates in the same car?” Hal asked.

Bruce released the breath.

“Clark already figured it out, but otherwise, yes,” Bruce said.

Hal didn’t say anything else. Instead he closed the distance between them. He cupped Bruce’s face between his hands and kissed him.

A beautiful, perfect moment passed. It was a clear, cold but beautiful December morning. Hal was with him and they had nothing to hide.

Hal broke the kiss and pulled away from him, just far enough so that he could ask, “Is this ok?”

Bruce answered him with another kiss.

There was no telling how much longer they would’ve stayed there on Hal’s front stoop if there hadn’t been a dull _bang_ and a shout of pain. He and Hal stopped kissing, but didn't let go of each other all the way as they both turned and looked in the direction of the shout.

What they saw was Barry, dressed in his usual running shorts despite the chilly temperature. He was hastily climbing to his feet next to a sedan parked across the street from Hal’s house. Once upright, Barry waved at them and continued on down the road, limping as he resumed a slow jog.

“I’m fine, just didn’t see the car. Dang thing came out of nowhere!” Barry said, chuckling.

They watched him run away. 

"You know, it's probably better this way," Hal said.

Bruce grunted in agreement.

* * *

Bruce wasn’t sure whether or not Cassandra had told the other children about him and Hal, but experience had taught him that it was smarter to not let rumors fester. So, at dinner that night while all of the kids and Alfred were gathered around the table, Bruce cleared his throat.

Conversations trailed off and faces turned in his direction. Bruce waited until they were quiet before he spoke.

“There’s something I want to talk to you all about,” Bruce said. “You may have heard this from Cassandra already, but I wanted to tell you myself. Hal Jordan and I are seeing each other romantically. We have been for a few weeks, but now we have decided it is time to tell everyone that we are together.”

Dead silence followed this announcement.

As the quiet stretched on, Bruce examined them for their reactions. Alfred’s eyes were wide with disbelief. Damian’s expression was perhaps a bit more judgmental than it had been before he spoke. Most of the kids simply stared at him, their faces unchanged. Only Duke had bothered to try to look surprised, but it was about the fakest expression of shock Bruce had ever seen in his life.

Bruce sighed.

“You knew already. Cassandra, did you tell them?” Bruce asked.

She looked away, chewing on her lip as she avoided his eyes.

Behind Cassandra on the other side of Duke, Bruce saw movement. Bruce looked over to see Jason point at Duke and Tim. The two boys were still focused on Bruce, so they didn’t notice.

“Tim, Duke,” Bruce said. “Do you have anything you’d like to tell me?” 

Tim and Duke’s mouths both opened in identical expressions of shock, a genuine one this time in Duke’s case. They looked around at the others and caught Jason pointing at them.

“Snitch,” Tim hissed at Jason, but Jason just dropped his hands and laughed.

“Were you spying on me?” Bruce asked, looking between Tim and Duke.

Both boys launched into denials that gradually transformed into excuses.

“It was an accident!” Duke said.

“Yeah, it was an accident!” Tim said. 

Bruce leveled Tim with a humorless expression and Tim quailed.

“Ok, maybe we did spy a little bit,” he admitted.

Bruce forced himself to take a deep breath and said, “I’m not angry, boys. I just want to know how you found out.”

And really, he thought, he didn’t have any right to be mad. Not when he’d been sneaking around like an overgrown teenager, hiding his relationship with Hal for no reason.

“Duke and I noticed you were on your phone a lot,” Tim said.

Duke was pushing his food around on his plate with his fork. He avoided Bruce’s eyes as he added, “We didn’t think much of it at first, but then Kyle was over one day. He mentioned that he thought Hal might be seeing someone but wasn’t telling him for some reason. When I asked how he knew he said that Hal was texting somebody all the time.”

“We could also hear you talking to someone sometimes at night. Just a murmuring, but enough to know you were talking on the phone. We asked Kyle if he heard the same thing, so one night Kyle snuck out of his room and listened outside Hal’s door. Like us, he could hear Hal speaking quietly,” Tim said.

“Then Alfred told us you were going out on a date on the same night that Hal told Kyle he was going out on a date. Kyle texted Jason when Hal got home so we could see if you arrived at the same time. You did.”

“So Kyle knows too,” Bruce said.

All of the kids except for Damian nodded.

Bruce stared into a corner of the kitchen for a moment, not meeting the eyes of Alfred or any of his children.

They’d known. Not Alfred—his expression of shock had been too genuine—but the kids had figured it out. It was more than a little bit humiliating. Honestly, despite his humiliation, he was kind of impressed that they'd worked it out.

At last, Bruce forced himself to meet their eyes. He made eye contact with all of them, looking between Duke and Tim last. They still looked apprehensive.

“I don’t approve of spying, however, it was wrong of me to keep it a secret,” Bruce finally said.

Tim and Duke relaxed a little.

“I take it that you do not disapprove of the relationship, or you would have spoken up a lot sooner,” Bruce said.

The kids exchanged glances, then looked back to him and shook their heads. Bruce felt relief more than anything else, even exasperation.

“Good, because I asked Hal and Kyle to come over for lunch tomorrow. I expect you all to be on your best behavior,” he told them.

This did surprise the kids, and they perked up a bit, especially Jason.

“You’re really dating him?” Tim asked.

“Don’t you like Hal?” Bruce asked.

“He’s ok I guess,” Tim muttered, shrugging.

Tim, out of all of the kids, was the most judgmental when it came to Bruce’s paramours. “He’s ok” was high praise indeed.

“Well, I for one am surprised,” Alfred said, addressing the children. “And I cannot believe that all of you knew this affair was carrying on and did not breathe a word of it to me.”

“You would’ve told him,” Dick said.

“Yeah, where’s the fun in that?” Jason asked. “We were taking bets on when they’d get caught.”

“No we weren’t!” Dick said, shooting a nervous look at Bruce.

Bruce shook his head at his children's audacity, but found he was in too good of a mood to scold them.

* * *

Bruce was apprehensive on Saturday morning, but just like the day of the Thanksgiving party, all of Bruce’s worries went away the very moment Hal and Kyle rang the doorbell.

Jason and Alfred got to the door while Bruce was still getting ready, so by the time Bruce got downstairs Hal was being ushered into the kitchen by Alfred. Jason and Kyle were trying to sneak up the staircase as Bruce was going down, but Hal caught them.

“I don’t think so, Rayner!” Hal said, calling up the staircase. “You’re still grounded. Get down here.”

Jason huffed out a sigh and Kyle rolled his eyes, but both boys turned and went back down the stairs.

After that Hal noticed Bruce, and then the other kids descended, and Hal was so preoccupied that he didn’t seem to notice Jason and Kyle sneak off to the den to talk.

Soon it was time to eat, however, and just as Bruce had known they would, the kids surrounded Hal at the table and commenced bothering him at once. Bruce finally had to tell them to back off and give Hal time to eat. They did so, but Bruce was unsurprised when Tim looped back around to the questioning as soon as the meal began to wind down. 

“Can I ask you something?” Tim asked Hal.

Tim’s questions had been by far the most intrusive, so Bruce thought the wariness on Hal’s face was justified when he said, “Uh, sure?”

“How did you meet Kyle’s parents?” Tim asked.

“Oh,” Hal said, looking relieved. “Well, it’s uh, kind of a long story—”

“He helped my mom get to the hospital when she was having me,” Kyle said, interrupting Hal.

Everyone turned to look at Kyle.

“Right,” Hal said. “I was at the grocery store doing some shopping, and I noticed this lady freaking out. She saw me standing nearby and started saying, ‘My water broke, oh my god, my water broke.’”

“Back then my parents only had one car and my dad was the one who had it that day. My mom told me that she got a craving for waffles so she walked to the store. I wasn't due for another week, so when her water broke, she panicked."

"I called a cab and got her to the hospital," Hal said. 

"A few weeks later, she found out that Hal was renting a room in a house down the street from our house. She said it was a sign and asked if he’d be my godfather, and Hal said yes.”

“You said yes when a stranger asked you to be her kid’s godfather?” Jason asked Hal. It was a rude question, but nevertheless the one that had gone through Bruce’s mind as well.

Hal wasn't thrown by Jason's bluntness. 

“If you met Maura you’d understand. It’s hard to say no to her, and anyway, I don’t regret it.” Hal reached around Duke and messed up Kyle's hair.

Kyle batted his hand away and turned to Jason, saying, “He used to babysit me sometimes. He was a terrible babysitter. There was this one time when he gave me caffeine—”

“I didn’t know the juice was caffeinated, dude. I thought it was just juice,” Hal said.

“I stayed up until like 3 a.m. that night. My mom was furious.”

“That’s what happens when you make a 20 year-old idiot a child’s godfather. Really, that one was on her,” Hal said.

“Bruce made similar mistakes with Dick,” Alfred said.

Bruce shot Alfred a reproachful look. 

Hal, however, raised his eyebrows and said, “Oh? Please, tell me everything.”

Bruce frowned at Hal, but let Alfred talk. Occasionally one of the kids chimed in to add their own story about Bruce, and it wasn't long before everyone was laughing at his numerous missteps. Bruce weathered this treatment with poise, but deep down he didn't mind much.

Later, Bruce didn't have to ask Hal to stick around after lunch because Hal seemed reluctant to leave. The kids ran off to resume their Saturday activities and Kyle and Jason snuck off into the den again, but Hal stayed in the kitchen and helped Bruce clean up.

“I think that went well,” Hal said.

Bruce, who was washing dishes, said, “I agree.”

“Nosy little jerks, aren’t they?” Hal asked.

“You have no idea,” Bruce said.

“Oh?”

Hal came over to lean against the counter next to him while Bruce told him about the conversation he’d had with the kids the night before.

“You’re kidding me,” Hal said when Bruce was done. “Unbelievable. All of that sneaking around and they figured it out anyway.”

“In retrospect, I suppose this is evidence that neither of us were very committed to keeping our relationship a secret in the first place.”

“We kept it from the neighbors. Well, until yesterday,” Hal pointed out. He picked up a towel and started drying clean dishes.

Indeed, Bruce had received a text from Clark that morning warning him that news of his and Hal’s relationship was spreading through the neighborhood fast. Bruce had been happy to be able to tell Clark that he didn’t care.

For a while he and Hal stood side by side, washing and drying in silence.

"There was something I wanted to tell you about," Hal said. 

"Oh?" Bruce said. 

"Something that you're not going to like. Probably." 

Bruce glanced at him, curious and a little worried. 

"You know that house down the street? The vacant one next to Arthur and Mira's?" Hal asked. 

Bruce nodded. 

"It sold last week. And I happen to know the people who bought it." 

"You do? Who—?" 

Bruce stopped, suddenly dreading that he already knew the answer to the question. 

Hal nodded and said, "Yeah. Guy and John told me they really like the neighborhood, so they decided to buy it." 

Bruce stared at him. He was holding a plate that was no longer soapy under the stream of water, but couldn't seem to make himself move and put it on the drying rack. 

Hal laughed and reached around him to turn the handle, shutting the water off. When this was done he took the plate out of Bruce's hand and started drying it. 

"I don't know why you're so horrified. John is a great guy," Hal said. 

"You know perfectly well he's not the one I'm concerned about," Bruce told him. 

"Guy is great too. It's just buried. Way deep down sometimes, but it's there." 

Bruce kept staring at him, watching as Hal finished drying the plate and set with the other clean dishes on the island. He picked up another dish on the drying rack and wiped it down next. 

At last, he looked up and met Bruce's eyes. Without saying anything, he leaned over and kissed Bruce. He was already pulling away before Bruce had time to react.

"You all just need to get to know each other better. They're my friends, and I'm dating you, so you all have to have something in common. That's science," Hal said. 

Bruce opened his mouth to voice his doubts.

...But then he shut his mouth, and kept his doubts to himself. Instead, he considered the situation for a moment more.

When Bruce finally spoke, it was to say, "I suppose you are correct that John and Guy and I do not know each other well." 

Hal grinned and leaned to answer him with another kiss. 

"I'll be great, you'll see," Hal said. 

Bruce didn't know what it was, but there was something about Hal that made him believe anything was possible. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you believe this is over because I can't. I already have mad batlantern withdrawal 
> 
> If you made it all the way to the end, thank you for reading Good Fences. I hope you enjoyed it :)
> 
> Also if you read Sons of Sirens and liked it you may be excited to hear that I've finally started working on some one shots from that universe, so keep an eye out for those!


End file.
